The core city itself contained a very few shops. It consisted mostly of the dwellings of those few who remained here all year and the inns.
There were dozens of those inns, ranging in quality from a mud-walled, dirt-floored, one-room ale house, to a marble palace of three stories, whose supposed amenities ranged from silk streets through mage-crafted delicacies to the very personal and intimate attendance of the servant Of one's choice.
The innkeeper had not gotten any more explicit than that, but Elspeth reckoned wryly that a whore by any other name still plied his or her trade-presumably, with expertise.
It might be nice to experience service like that, one day-though without, she thought with a little embarrassment, anything more personal than a good massage.
But for now, she had a great deal more on her mind than that. For one thing, she had to find Shin'a'in. This was Kata'shin'a'in, "City of the Shin'a'in," after all. Once she found Shin'a'in, she had to get them to talk to her. Then she had to find someone willing and able to put her in touch with Tale'sedrin, Kero's Clan.
And she reckoned that the best place to find the Shin'a'in would be in the beast market. They not only bred horses, after all, they also had herds of sheep and goats; presumably they bought and sold both.
Failing that, she would try the textile merchants. The Shin'a'in were great weavers and among those who treasured such pieces of art, their carpets, blankets, and other textiles and embroideries were famed all the way up into Valdemar.
So she went out to scout the beast market first.
She had hoped to slip away without disturbing Skif, who had fallen asleep on the bed, exhausted by the strain of the strange day.
But no matter what Need claimed about her own powers, evidently "attracting Luck" was no longer one of them. She had no sooner gotten outside the door of the inn when Skiff came panting up behind her.
She sighed and kept from snapping at him. It was fairly obvious that he was not going to let her go out alone. And it wasn't simply more of his mother-henning. The peculiar look in his eyes told her all she needed to know.
He was infatuated with her.
And I ought to recognize infatuation when I see it, since I've suffered under it myself.
He undoubtedly had convinced himself that he was in love with her.
Wonderful, she thought to herself, as she headed determinedly toward her goal, despite having him trailing along behind her. _just wonderful My partner thinks he's in love with me, my Companion wants me to become some kind of Foretold Hero, my sword has a mind of its own, and I'm going to have to find someone from an elusive tribe of an elusive people all on my own, in a city where I don't even speak the language.
No, somehow I don't think that attracting Luck is on the list of active spells...Chapterr Fifteen DARKWIND
Treyvan roused his feathers, fluffing his crest and shaking his head, his claws digging long furrows into the thick weedy turf. He held his head high, his muscles stiff with impatience. Darkwind glanced sideways at him and smiled a little.
A shadow passed over the scout, and he looked up automatically, but it was only a cloud passing across the sun. Vree was waiting for him back in the forest, away from the temptation of Treyvan's crest feathers.
"How long have you and Hydona been mated?" he asked, with pretended innocence.
"Twelve yearsss," the gryphon replied, rousing his feathers again, and casting his own glance upward. "What'sss that got to do with anything?"
And you've made quite a few mating flights, haven't you?" the scout continued, his smile broadening. Treyvan was so preoccupied he didn't even realize that Darkwind was teasing him.
"Well," Treyvan said, with a sidelong glance at Hydona. Hydona only roused her own feathers, watching him coyly. "Yesss."
"If you've got so much experience at it," he laughed, reaching up to scratch behind Treyvan's ear-tufts, "don't you think you ought to be able to take your time about this one?" Treyvan closed his eyes, wearing an expression of long-suffering patience." You, a human, alwayss in ssseason, with matesss ambusshing you even when you are bathing-you tell me that? You crrreaturess neverrr ssstop.
Hydona made a choking sound; her mate pointedly looked away from her. Darkwind knew that faint gargling from past exchanges with the pair; she was trying not to chuckle. He raised his eyebrows at her, then gave her a broad wink. She hid her head by turning it to the side, but her shaking shoulders told him she was stifling outright laughter.
"Anyway," Treyvan continued, in an aggrieved tone, "you know very well that I casst the initial ssspell thiss morrrning. And you know verrry well that until we complete it with the sssecond ssspell, it'sss going to make me itchierrr than a plague of sssand-fleasss. I explained it to you often enough." He shook his head and made a grinding sound with his beak. "I feel asss if my ssskin isss too tight," he complained.
Darkwind bit his tongue to keep from making a retort to that particular complaint. "In that case," he said, soothingly, "I had probably better leave you two alone."
"oh, he'll live," Hydona countered, controlling herself and her humor admirably. "Trrruly he will. You're rrready for what we'll do thisss time, I hope? Not like the lassst time?" He flushed at the memory of the "last time," when he had been much younger. He had been close enough to them, and unshielded, so that he had gotten caught up in the extremely potent magic of their mating spell.
The first spell that Treyvan had mentioned was what actually made the mating fertile; otherwise their sexual activity was purely for enjoyment.
The second would ensure conception. And despite Treyvan's acerbic comment about "humans always being in season," the fact was that the gryphons were at least as active in that area as any humans Darkwind knew.
"I'll be fine," he told her. "I'm not fourteen anymore." Hydona laughed. "I'd notisssed," she teased. "Essspecially around Dawnfirrre. When will you be picking a mate?"
"Uh-" the question took him by surprise, so he settled for a gallant answer. "When I find a mate as magical as you are."
" Flattererrr," she replied, dryly. "Well, when you do, perhapsss we'll all be rrready to ssssettle a new place together, ssso that we can keep eyesss on each other'sss sssmall onesss." She looked over his head a moment, off into the distance. "That isss the ultimate goal of ourrr being herrre, you know," she said thoughtfully. "We'rrre pioneersss, of a sssort. Our kind came from sssomewhere about herrre, you know, very, very long ago, and Trrreyvan and I are here now to sssee if it isss the time to rrreturn."
" So you told me," he said," A long time ago.
She nodded as Treyvan sighed and lay down in the long grass with a long-suffering look.
Oh, yesss," she said, ignoring her mate, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "We arrre herrre to sssee if we can raissse little ones, brrring them into the magic of the land, and prosssper. If we do well, more will come. You know, ourrr people and yoursss arrre ancient parrrtnersss, from the daysss of the Kaled'a'in. The hertasi, too, and othersss you may not have everrr ssseen beforrre. It would be good if we could be partnersss again." Another surprise; this time, a much greater surprise. He'd been astonished to learn that the gryphons were fluent in the ancient tongue of Kaled'a'in, a language so old that very few of either the Tayledras or the Shin'a'in could be considered "fluent," despite the fact that both their current languages were derived from that parent. But this revelation was a total surprise, for there was nothing in the Tayledras histories to indicate that the two species had been so close.