Tamora said, “Reading, is it? There’s nothing in books you can’t learn better in the world, nothing but fantastic rubbish about monsters and the like. You’ll rot your mind and your eyes, reading too much in books.”
“Well, I met a real monster today.”
“Well, he’s dead, the fucker, and we have a piece of him in brandy as proof. So much for him.”
Yama had not told Tamora and Pandaras about the feral machine. Tamora had boasted that one of her pistol shots had weakened the ceiling and so caused the flood which had saved them, and Yama had not corrected her error. He felt a rekindling of shame at this deception, and said weakly, “I suppose the merchant was a kind of monster. He tried to flee from his true self, and let a little hungry part of himself rule his life. He was all appetite and nothing else. I think he would have eaten the whole world, if he could.”
“You want to be a soldier. Here’s some advice. Don’t think about what you have to do and don’t think about it when it’s done.”
“And can you forget it so easily?”
“Of course not. But I try. We were captured, your rat-boy and me, and thrown into cages, but you had it worse, I think. The merchant was trying to bend you toward his will. The words of his kind are like thorns, and some of them are still in your flesh. But they’ll wither, and you’ll forget them.”
Yama smiled and said, “Perhaps it would be no bad thing, to be the ruler of the world.”
Tamora sat down close beside him. She was a shadow in the darkness. She said, “You would destroy the civil service and rule instead? How would that change the world for the better?”
Yama could feel her heat. She gave off a strong scent compounded of fresh blood and sweat and a sharp musk. He said, “Of course not. But the merchant told me something about my bloodline. I may be alone in the world. I may be a mistake thrown up at the end of things. Or I may be something else. Something intended.”
“The fat fuck was lying. How better to get you to follow him than by saying that you are the only one of your kind, and he knows all about you?”
“I am not sure that he was lying, Tamora. At least, I think he was telling part of the truth.”
“I haven’t forgotten what you want, and I was a long time hunting coneys because I really went to ask around. Listen. I have a way of getting at what you want. There is a job for a couple of caterans. Some little pissant department needs someone to organize a defense of its territory inside the Palace of the Memory of the People. There are many disputes between departments, and the powerful grow strong at the expense of the weak. That’s the way of the world, but I don’t mind defending the weak if I get paid for it.”
“Then perhaps they may be stronger than you after all.”
“Grah. Listen. When a litter is born here, the babies are exposed on a hillside for a day. Any that are weak die, or are taken by birds or foxes. We’re the Fierce People, see? We keep our bloodline strong. The wogs and wetbacks and snakes and the rest of the garbage down there in the city, they’re what we prey on. They need us, not the other way around.” Tamora spat sideways. Yes, she had drunk a lot of brandy. She said, “There’s prey, and there’s hunters. You have to decide which you are. You don’t know, now is the time you find out. Are you for it?”
“It seems like a good plan.”
“Somewhere or other you’ve picked up the habit of not speaking plain. You mean yes, then say it.”
“Yes. Yes, I will do it. If it means getting into the Palace of the Memory of the People.”
“Then you got to pay me, because I found it for you, and I’ll do the work.”
“I know something about fighting.”
Tamora spat again. “Listen, this is a dangerous job. This little department is certain to be attacked and they don’t have a security office or they wouldn’t be hiring someone from outside. They’re bound to lose, see, but if it’s done right then only their thralls will get killed. We can probably escape, or at worse lose our bond when we’re ransomed, but I won’t deny there’s a chance we’ll get killed, too. You still want it?”
“It is a way in.”
“Exactly. This department used to deal in prognostication, but it is much debased. There are only a couple of seers left, but it is highly placed in the Palace of the Memory of the People, and other more powerful departments want to displace it. It needs us to train its thralls so they can put up some kind of defense, but there will be time for you to search for whatever it is you’re looking for. We will agree payment now. You’ll pay any expenses out of your share of the fees for killing the merchant and for this new job, and I keep my half of both fees, and half again of anything that’s left of yours.”
“Is that a fair price?”
“Grah. You’re supposed to bargain, you idiot! It is twice what the risk is worth.”
“I will pay it anyway. If I find out what I want to know, I will have no need of money.”
“If you want to join the army as an officer, you’ll need plenty, more than you’re carrying around now. You’ll have to buy the rest of your own armor, and mounts, and weaponry. And if you’re looking for information, there will be bribes to be paid. I’ll take a quarter of your fees, bargaining against myself like a fool, and share expenses with you. You’ll need the rest, believe me.”
“You are a good person, Tamora, although I would like you better if you were more tolerant. No one bloodline should raise itself above any other.”
“I’ll do well enough out of this, believe me. One other thing. We won’t tell the rat-boy about this. We do this without him.”
“Are you scared of him because he killed the gatekeeper?”
“If I was scared of any of his kind, I would never dare spit in the gutter again, for fear of hitting one in the eye. Let him come if he must, but I won’t pretend I like it, and any money he wants comes from you, not me.”
“He is like me, Tamora. He wants to be other than his fate.”
“Then he’s certainly as big a fool as you.” Tamora handed Yama the brandy bottle. It was almost empty. “Drink. Then you will listen to me sing our victory song. The rat-boy is scared to sit with my brothers and sisters, but I know you won’t be.”
Although Yama tried not to show it, he was intimidated by the proud, fierce people who sat around the campfire: an even decad of Tamora’s kin, heavily muscled men and women marked on their shoulders by identical tattoos of inverted triangles. Most intimidating of all was a straight-backed matriarch with a white mane and a lacework of fine scars across her naked torso, who watched Yama with red-backed eyes from the other side of the fire while Tamora sang.
Tamora’s victory song was a discordant open-throated ululation that rose and twisted like a sharp silver wire into the black air above the flames of the campfire. When it was done, she took a long swig from a wine skin while the men and women murmured and nodded and showed their fangs in quick snarling smiles, although one complained loudly that the song had been less about Tamora and more about this whey-skinned stranger.
“That is because it was his adventure,” Tamora said.
“Then let him sing for himself,” the man grumbled.
The matriarch asked Tamora about Yama, saying that she had not seen his kind before.
“He’s from downriver, grandmother.”
“That would explain it. I’m told that there are many strange peoples downriver, although I myself have never troubled to go and see, and now I am too old to have to bother. Talk with me, boy. Tell me how your people came into the world.”
That is a mystery, even to myself. I have read something in the Puranas about my people, and I have seen a picture of one in an old slate, but that is all I know.”