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Chapter Thirty-Eight

From Riordan’s vantage point, the town across the river was barely four hundred meters across and had no ancient ruins, tall or otherwise. It was a flat sprawl of adobe hovels centered on a handful of buildings fashioned from fitted stone or better adobe: a kind that included lime, according to Ulchakh.

The h’achgan trader stared at the place with a deep frown. “I am always uneasy before entering Khorkrag.”

“Because there are so few of your kind there?” Caine asked.

“Strangely, it is because there are none of your kind there,” he answered with a shake of his head. “Here, no liege keeps humans in his thrall. They are too expensive, considering that none of what makes them valuable is found or made in so small a place.”

Riordan nodded, grateful for Bey’s accumulated lessons on how the town differed from Forkus. “No tracts of lichen. That changes almost everything.”

Ulchakh glanced at him. “You are learning, Friend Caine. This is well. And you touch on the root of the difference. Without tracts to tend, there is less food and so, fewer mouths: barely five thousand. Fewer mouths means less power to accrue. Less power means that only disgraced or weak x’qao will create a fastness here. And with so little to gain or lose, they have no need of humans’ abilities to travel widely and attack with great effect while few in number. And that is just as well, because the tools that make such things possible—rads, guns, and the substances they require—cannot be crafted or maintained here.”

Riordan suppressed a smile at the slang for vehicles: “rads.” It was one of the few points of overlap in every language on Bactradgaria. Even among independent humans, reportedly. “You are sure you must visit it?”

Yidreg answered from over Ulchakh’s shoulder. “We cannot know it is safe for us all to use the ferry until we have measured the mood of the place. On rare occasion, it is hostile to h’achgai.”

“But you’re more worried it is hostile to us,” Bannor added from alongside the broad-shouldered hunter.

Yidreg shrugged. “We would be foolish not to. Humans only rarely come here and then only on the business of lieges.”

Ulchakh nodded. “Besides, merely seeing you—and all burntskins, no less!—is a subtle reminder of how very unimportant this place and its leaders are to the world beyond. No being, no matter how rude, welcomes such comparisons.”

He pushed away from the low rock lip that overlooked the high-water bank. “Besides, if your rescue of Leader Eku earned the notice of lieges in Forkus, some may have reached across the miles to alert their lesser cousins to be alert for a band of humans, or rogue harrows, who might be fleeing the site of their effrontery.”

“And how would they reach across the miles?” Solsohn asked, joining the group.

Ulchakh shrugged. “Mindspeaking. How else?”

Riordan and his friends remained quiet. Any honest comment or question about the power imputed to more powerful x’qai—a kind of telepathy—was too likely to be heard as an insult. Because whenever the Crewe attempted to ask questions about “mindspeaking,” their tones almost always betrayed the actual word they equated with it: “superstition.”

Ulchakh did not leave the topic, however. “Two lieges from Forkus are said to extend their rivalry to Khorkrag, at the orders of their suzerains: Brazhglu’u and Ormalg. The latter’s proxies now control the majority of Khorkrag and have been particularly aggressive in recent years.”

Yidreg nodded. “Of those two camps, those who are sworn to Ormalg are far more hostile toward humans, particularly those not safely in the stables of x’qai. When we visit Ulchakh’s kinsmen in their trade station, we shall learn if it is safe for all of us to pass through. Hastily.”

Duncan’s voice revealed his sudden curiosity. “If Khorkrag is even dangerous to h’achgai, why do any of you stay here?”

Ulchakh shrugged. “Since there is no vansary or regular place to trade here, we must keep our own. Otherwise, we would be forced to make exchanges in a place held by a third party. That is not only expensive, but very unreliable. In Forkus, there is enough value being exchanged that any liege who dared violate the rules of the vansary would no longer be able to trade. Here?” He shrugged expressively. “Trade is so rare and our anger so unimportant that, if a liege stood to gain enough, he would betray us as readily as he breathes.”

“And have you decided which of our goods you’ll offer alongside your own?”

Ulchakh’s smile was pinched. “If only you were willing to part with some of the bronze weapons and better armor you took from the praakht’s hovel in Forkus.” He rolled his eyes at Duncan. “The hide-wrapped hafts you offered are hardly a rarity, up here. Are you sure you will not part with any of the salt cakes?”

Riordan glanced at Solsohn. His eager and intense expression was the one that Pandora had understandably nicknamed “merchant mode.” “No, we might need the salt. But won’t they be interested in the silver and the gems?”

Ulchakh gave him a long-suffering look. “A handful of uncut garnets are not gems any more than the mostly copper coins are ‘silver.’ And they do not have the value here that they would in a city.”

“Sure,” Duncan nodded, understanding. “Here, trade means barter in essential goods.” He smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, we need almost all those goods ourselves.”

Ulchakh shrugged. “Then we shall see what the garnets and the hide sandals and scraps bring. After all, the trade is merely camouflage for our visit.” He glanced at the sun and at the two stone stelae half a kilometer further north on their side of the river. “We must go. It is likely to be some time before they see us raise the flag at the stanchions. And some time after that before they make their way across.”

Riordan raised a hand to delay him a moment more. “And if a day has passed and you have not returned?”

Ulchakh nodded slowly. “Then wait another day.”

“And after that?”

“Leave. Go north, cross wherever you can using the methods you claim to have and strike overland to Achgabab as fast as you may travel. Arashk knows the best ways through the wadi country.”

“But you might need—”

“Friend Caine: if I have not returned by the end of tomorrow, I will be beyond all needs. Now, I must go.”

***

Riordan and Bey watched the praakht-crewed ferry being lashed to the mooring at Khorkrag’s natural-rock jetty, the three h’achgai already waiting to debark.

She pointed at the apparent captain of the craft. “He is a whakt, like me.”

Riordan could see the difference clearly now, particularly since as a male, this whakt was almost a head and a half taller than any of his trog crew. “I am finding it easier to note the distinctions.”

She shook her head. “You are only seeing size. Attend, Leader Caine. Compare your skin to mine. Yours is very smooth, yes, but it is thin and burns easily. A praakh’s skin is more like mine, but is thicker, even rough. The same is true for the differences in our hair. You seem to have very little except on your head, and the strands are very thin. A true praakh’s hair covers more of their body and is thick, giving better protection against the sun and cold. Mine is somewhere between.”

She paused, looked at Riordan’s Dornaani vacc suit as if she were seeing it for the first time. “Is this why you wear armor that covers your entire body? Not just to protect you from weapons, but from the world around you?”

He shrugged. “I never thought of it that way before, but, in a manner of speaking, yes. Although ‘world around us’ includes places where no praakht could survive without such, er, armor.” He smiled. “Nor could the most resourceful whakt kajh, for that matter.”

She rolled her eyes but did not manage to keep a small grin from bending her mouth. “Do not underestimate my kind, Leader Caine! We often surprise those who do!”

“I have already learned that, Bey. Surprising me is one of the things you seem to do best.”

She glanced at him. “I cannot tell if you mean that as praise or criticism.”

“Well, not exactly either. I am mostly thinking how every time we speak, I not only learn something new. I learn something about which I was too ignorant to ask.”

She smiled, then studied his face. “You have such a question now, do you not?”

I may be getting too easy to read, but that’s just a risk I’ll have to take. “I do have a question, but there is no polite way to ask it.”

She chuckled. “As I have said before, being ‘polite’ has little use upon the wastes. And less still when peoples are trying to learn about each other. Ask your question, Leader Caine.”

“You spoke of mates across the different species. Are all the species—I mean, well, can all of them breed with each other?”

“No. And before you ask which ones can, and how well each pairing breeds, understand that there are no swift answers to these questions. But here are some useful truths that apply to all of them.

“Some kinds of praakht may breed more easily with other kinds. All praakht can breed with humans, but for some it is difficult and even dangerous, whereas with others it is little different from humans breeding with humans. My people, for instance, breed with humans so easily because so much of their blood is in our veins.”

“And this shared blood comes from more frequent pairings?”

“Yes, but also from long before. It dates to the time when the great towers stood unbroken, invisible pictures were in the wind, ships flew higher than the clouds, and finally, the skies burned and left the world as you see it.” She frowned. “I should like to have seen the before-world.”

Riordan had to hold back his reflex to say, “Perhaps one day you will visit worlds like that.” In part he had no business suggesting such a thing when he couldn’t even see a way of getting to orbit, but mostly because it was necessary to carefully manage such wild hopes and dreams. Both his and hers.

Bey had not stopped her speculations upon the connections between their species. “Whakt still see much that is familiar in humans, and it is said the reverse is true. That is why such mixed pairings are so common. Still, the breeding is never so certain and effortless that it can go untracked.”

“Untracked? By whom? Humans or whakt?”

She grimaced. “No, by x’qai. Neither of our breeds bothers to keep track of how much of which blood is in our veins, other than that there is both. But the x’qao see both of us as tools, and they are determined to ensure that we stay different tools, according to their needs and wishes.”

Good God, they breed us like dogs. Some to be kept as pure-breed lines, some as new breeds to mix for desired traits. They buy and sell us the same way, too. “So what were they trying to achieve in mixing us?”

“That is not a concern of theirs; they have long had all the mixes they desire. What they track is how any pair’s ancestors make it more or less likely that they will whelp successfully.”

“Whelp?” Yet . . . of course they’d call it that.

“Humans are—forgive me—the weakest of all breedstock. So the x’qai keep careful records on the degree to which human blood is present in any mixed whelp. Praakht females are able to carry human young without any additional risk. Also, the weight of mixed whelps is lower than that of true praakht, who typically carry their own offspring longer.

“It is the opposite with human females. For them, it is difficult and sometimes dangerous to carry mixed children. The more praakht blood is in the child, the more this is true. Breach births are not uncommon, and since the time in the womb is longer, it can overtax a human female, sometimes fatally.” She paused. “Leader Caine, you grow pale. Well, more pale. Have I said something that alarms you?”

“No, Bey: your words have shown me many new things, but they all have one thing in common.”

“Which is?”

“That I must learn everything I can about the x’qai. Everything.”

“To what end?”

“Do you have the saying that, to defeat an enemy, you must first come to know it very well?”

“No, but it is quite sensible.”

Riordan was fairly sure his smile was mirthless. “Yes, and I mean to prove that to you: you and all your kind.”


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