Chapter 34 - The Melezane

By the time they arrived at the stairs down to the tollhouse from the citadel, the caravan had already pulled up into the courtyard. The drivers were busy removing harnesses and tack from the horses and the stunk of animal and man alike. Bahsa was there, taking payment for the evenings accommodations, and feed and water for the animals from the caravan master. She used the same log as Sefton, and like him, was meticulous about coin. She took notice of the pair of them after re-counting the money, though Cadryn was sure the Quartermistress was aware of their presence from the start.

“You two planning to gawk all night, or would you like to make yourselves useful?” she asked, not looking up from the tally book.

“I am ever at your disposal, Quartermistress,” Encara said without kindness.

“What can we do to help?” Cadryn added.

Ambling slowly, Bahsa made her way up to the second floor of the Tollhouse, but before turning to go inside, bade them come closer. Sensing a secret they both scuttled over quickly. “See the one with that overloaded mule at the back that just came in?”

Cadryn nodded, “the kid.”

“Not a kid I think, too slow moving,” Encara observed.

“You have right of it,” Bahsa said, seemingly annoyed that Cadryn had failed this little test. “It’s not a kid, that my Keepers, is a Melezane.”

“One of Nine’s?” Encara said.

Bahsa laughed throatily and shook her head in the negative, “Just keep an eye on it . . . don’t want to end up cursed, or worse.”

“Will do, my Quartermistress,” Encara replied earnestly, and immediately set off down the stairs.

“Better get after her, if you plan to learn something tonight,” Bahsa admonished Cadryn.

Rubbing his temples, he took the steps at a jog to catch up, nearly losing it on the bottom due to the slickness of the cobbles. A rough looking drayman in the loose robes of the Western Reaches clicked his tongue and grinned.

“Watch your step, Imperial, the land is treacherous today.”

Cadryn ignored the comment, or threat, if it was that, and managed to catch up to Encara where she was now leaning to one side of the large entrance to the covered storehouse. The long building was empty at this time of the year, but it made for a ready dry place to set out sleeping gear without the need for tents. Men and women, now done putting up their animals and barding for the night, drifted about setting out sleeping rolls or going out to the kitchen beside the courtyard to help prepare a late meal. A fire had been started, and the crackle and pop of pine punctuated the easy laughter of comrades.

“They’re a tidy bunch,” Encara said, “All from the same clan I think, but I wonder if that will last the night.” She pointed to the Melezane.

Despite the option of staying in the warehouse with the others, or putting its mule in the stables, the strange being had instead lead its beast to the sheltered overhang of the guard post, unburdened it and let the animal wander off to find its own food and water. Turning to the pile of random oddities removed from the Mule, it removed a large mat, unfurled it on the cobbles, and settled down into a seated position, bending its oddly long limbs to do so. There, in the darkness of the deeper shadows, it waited.

“What is it doing, exactly?” Cadryn said, only half expecting an answer out of Encara.

“Waiting for customers,” she said.

As if summoned by her words, a young man, black haired with a scraggly beard, split off from a group of youths to walk over, their encouraging howls chasing at his heels. Seeing his approach, the Melezane produced a bowl from its towering mass of objects and set it on the mat in between the two of them. Gesturing with a single claw of a finger for the youth to sit. The pair swapped a few hushed words and some imperial coinage fell into the bowl from the lad’s hand. Reaching back into the pile, without looking, the Melezane produced a small comb, which it handed over with great reverence. Clapping his hands together, the youth took the comb, and retreated, brushing at his thin beard the whole way.

“A fine exchange,” Encara said, clearly bemused.

“For the Melezane,” Cadryn countered, shaking his head.

While they watched for the next half-bell, four more individuals, a man and three women in all, came over to the strange creature and traded something of value for mere junk. Cadryn began to grow angry with the whole situation.

“This is clearly a fraud, I spent enough time in Throne-home to recognize a huckster. Shouldn’t we put a stop to this?”

“Why,” Encara, “It’s like they say back home; ‘The coin of the trusting is slippery.’ Nothing against people engaging in personal trades if they’ve paid to be here for the night.”

It was past midnight now, and the moon’s movements through the heavens forced the light to spill down below the edge of the guard post, illuminating better the mat the Melezane occupied. Cadryn rubbed his eyes, looked a second time, but the image woven into the mat remained the same: The Foundation Stone. Running his tongue across his teeth he leaned forward from the wall where they had been watching.

“I’m going to check it out,” he said.

“I wouldn’t, but you do as you must, young man,” Encara said, waving dismissively.

“You’re a ten-year older than me at best,” said Cadryn, “So stop putting on airs, would you?”

He smiled at the huffing protests of the former lady; you could take a noble’s lands, but not the haughtiness of being a member of the landed class. Shaking out his stiff legs while crossing the courtyard, Cadryn found a pair of familiar eyes watching him from above and waved at Mareth. In reply, she only looked down on him, worried. Trying to shake that off, and now closer than before, Cadryn took a good look at the Melezane.

She, for it was definitely a she upon closer inspection, wore the garb of a merchant, though from what region Cadryn could not say. Each piece of clothing was a different style, material, and even age. Her body had a strange proportion to it, as if a stretched clay statuette left to harden. The skin was the color and texture of sandstone, but the eyes! They could have been plucked from a giant oyster; two perfect pearls, white as milky. She smiled then, showing more than one row of thin teeth with a grey eel of a tongue behind them.

“Greetings, Cadryn Bence, you are known,” she said, the words a rasp of sand on a tile floor.

Cadryn found his throat suddenly dry in the humid night, and coughed. Now he realized the meaning of Bahsa’s earlier comment about Nine, this Melezane was some sort of fae.

“Of a sort, Yes,” the creature was saying. “I am like you, a mix of blood, but in my case mortal and fae . . . more interesting by half, than your petty differences.”

“You have the gift of Knowing, then,” Cadryn managed, still standing.

“Yes, yes, the knowing of a thing, we Melezane attain, and a longer life, if we survive to enjoy it.”

Cadryn settled onto his knees, crouching down to eye level, keeping his body taut and ready to spring if needed. “What gifts do you lack then, on account of your weak mortal blood . . .”

“Gemma, Gemma Plot, if you must know my name,” she replied reading his desire to know it. “Well, we lack the Glamour of our true-kin, a true loss, for it leaves us at the mercy of humanities prejudices.” Rocking side to side, she reached back to pat the pile of odds and ends behind where she sat. “Though, we are gifted with a Demesne, be it a small and pitiable one.”

Looking at the pile more closely, Cadryn began to realize the real meaning of the words. It was not the vast world onto its self that the true fae possessed in legend, but the pile did have an otherworldly quality to it, for one, there was no way all the disparate items should remain together, much less be light enough to move around. Something moved, and for a moment, he saw a tiny ox pulling a cart of cabbages between a teapot and camp stool.

“It is a fine Demesne,” Cadryn said, and let his eyes return to the marbled whites of Gemma Plot. “Why do you give away parts of it for coin?”

The teeth grew in her mouth with the answer, “A woman must eat, must sleep, and must bathe? I am half a mortal after all.”

“So they were dealing with Gemma, the woman, then.”

“As they dare,” she said jovially.

“What about Gemma the Fae?”

“If. You. Dare,” answered a wholly different voice from somewhere deep within the body before him.

“I think not,” Cadryn replied, standing quickly enough to see stars. “A good evening to you, Gemma.”

“A shame,” she replied sadly, “You might have avoided a great pain, had you the . . . stomach.”

Leaving the bait, Cadryn began to walk away, when his bad leg locked in place, skin writhing. The sound of the caravan members singing and trading tales faded away, as his vision began to swim their shapes melted into mere stains of light. Now, the other voice dripped in his ear, close on his neck like an old lover.

“I shall gift you with the pain of Knowing: Betrayal of act shall fall upon you, from one you hate, and from one you love. Both will die, thy will be done.”

Cadryn staggered then, as a wave of light and heat slammed into his back, the deathly voice vanishing with a shriek. Spinning, he came up into a low guard, blade sliding free from his scabbard. His view of Gemma was blocked by another.

Mareth, steam rising around her from heat blasted cobblestone, stood with her ironbound staff held high, three small suns in place of one. Flames wreathed her arms, flaring blue-green from scarred flesh. She spoke, her voice just loud enough to hear over the sound of her own fury.

“Be gone, creature. I will not repeat myself.”

Cowering, Gemma Plot complied, scrapping up the mat in a hurried panic. Throwing it over the pile of junk, and without a mote of apparent effort, she lifted the entire mass with a single arm, depositing it on her own back. Shuffling sideways, never taking those marbled eyes off Cadryn, she scuttled out to the gate, smiling.

Only after she was gone, did Mareth lower her staff, the flames dying out to embers. In the still air that followed, the murmuring of the travelers was filled with apprehension. From above, Bahsa called down to them to go back to their affairs, and they did without protest. Encara joined them, a wide grin splitting her thin lips.

“Well that looked exciting, what’d she say?” she asked.

“Nothing that matters,” Mareth answered, without turning to face them fully.

In the last light of her staff, Cadryn could see the dried tears.

The rest of the night of the Melezane’s visit passed with mercifully little excitement. Unfortunately, that gave Cadryn lots of time to consider the words that alien voice had spoken, the promise of betrayal and death. Maybe, he concluded, Mareth was right: it did not matter, who is to say it was not a lie? It was a small comfort as the tired man crawled into his alcove that morning, just ahead of the rising sun, and sought the freedom of sleep.

He found his dreams of little comfort.