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The Tower of Stone and Sky
2. A Stop Along the Way

2. A Stop Along the Way

The city that the caravan ended up splitting in was Amash, and it was a river town. That was close enough to an oasis in the arid steppe, though that's not the correct term in some ways; the point is that there were no trees away from the river, except where someone had dug ditches, and there were a fair number of them by the riverside, except where they'd been cleared for space or wood, or where the soil wasn't good enough to support them.

Even so, it deserved to be called a small city, or perhaps a large town. The river came out of the hills, and there was just enough of a slope to the terrain here to support an system of aqueducts, allowing sprawl away from the river. There were also a series of ditches leading out of the city, but... those were not fresh water, as the smell made perfectly clear.

Haal didn't even find the waste ditches to be notable as we went on by, and I had no reason to comment on them. They kept the smell away from the road, mostly, but that might have been the wind at our backs, too. Either way, the group made its way through the outskirts and past the core of the city, stopping eventually on the far side in a wide plaza that seemed like it was made for exactly this kind of trading. The wagons and carts pulled around the plaza in a circle, and when the circle was complete the leaders made another smaller circle inwards. The caravan was just the right size to pull this off without getting jammed up in the middle; all the carts had room, and soon all the horses were being detached and led away where they could be, while the merchants let down sideboards on their cart and created display areas.

"This is where it helps to have an assistant," Haal confided, handing me some coins. "Take Chelli and Burra and follow the others who are taking their horses away. When you find the stable, make sure they have oats and water and make sure they will get cleaned. If you see the stable boy with the nasty scar on his chin," he pointed to his own face, "he knows me, and you can give him my name."

And then he went back to arranging his goods, and I could see how he wouldn't want to walk away from the cart at a moment like this. So I took the reins for his two horses, giving each a reassuring pat, and led them along.

In the end, I didn't see the stable boy that Haal mentioned, but I found a fairly harried, determined looking young woman who got to me after dealing with another trader who seemed to already know her. I wasn't in a rush, just gently reassuring the horses as I waited, and to her credit, that had her pick me over another, more ungrateful trader's assistant--or wife, maybe? I didn't ask--that was trying to force a large beast into her path.

The young woman led me to a pair of stalls, and I spoke of the requests and gave her Haal's name. When she started taking off one horse's blankets, I did the same for the other, and when she thrust a brush at me, I didn't complain, instead helping get the sand out of Burra's coat. The horse gave me a look I couldn't read, and didn't complain.

"Thank you," I told her, and she gave me a tired smile, but had to move on quickly.

The first wave of locals had come in even as the caravan was setting up, and Haal was haggling with someone over the price of some thick cotton, so I didn't bother him. His goods were fairly diverse; he had some raw gemstones and a couple pieces of jewelry, in addition to an assortment of raw cloth, a couple knives, and a few things I didn't really recognize, and I wasn't sure he'd unpacked everything. Not everyone who came up bought something, and I made sure to stand imperiously nearby and look guard-ish, keeping an eye on anyone who might have sticky fingers, but nothing came of it.

When there was a lull of activity, I stepped up and returned the coins I hadn't spent at the stable, mentioning the girl. He frowned when I said the boy hadn't been there, but shook his head. "It would have been better to give the girl some extra," he said, "but I didn't tell you to. I will check on the horses tonight, and offer her a tip if everything is as you said. But I wonder where Maruk went. It would be a shame if something happened to him."

I nodded, then stepped away as some boys came close to ogle the shiny gems Haal had laid out.

In the end, the first day of trading went smoothly. There was a period around supper time that caravan guards hustled people out of the traders square so that some internal affairs could be handled, and Haal and a few others felt comfortable enough to leave their carts alone in that brief period. He checked on the horses after giving me a little cash to grab something for both of us, and we met back up at his cart a few minutes later, me offering him a kebab and him taking it a little glumly.

"It's as I feared," he said to me. "Maruk was kicked by a soldier's horse a few months ago. With the right care he might have made it, but nobody would care for a stable boy. He often said the owner of the stables cared little for him, even though he did his best."

I put a hand on Haal's shoulder. "I'm sorry," I said, finding some anger in my voice. For a soldier, especially... someone who should have been concerned for the public, for them to not care that someone died, that upset me. "A pity you weren't here to look after him."

Haal nodded, ripping a mouthful of combined meat and vegetables from his kebab with his teeth. "If I had been here when it happened, I would have done what I could," he said, half through a mouthful of food. "He was a pleasant boy. But I suppose for a Cavahi this is common."

"Cavahi?" The term, like many, was unfamiliar.

"They are a nomadic people from far to the south," he said. "Many places there are even hotter, and the sun darkens their skin to almost black. Many people here do not like them, but he was a good kid." He took another bite from his kebab.

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If anything, I suppose I felt honored that Haal trusted me enough not to mention the boy's skin color when he sent me off. I could see some people in my shoes being shitty to a black boy in the stables, but I wouldn't, and it's nice that he trusted that about me.

After supper there was another shopping period, and then the plaza closed again for the night. Some merchants went off to nearby inns, but Haal just checked on his horses and then returned to the cart and got out his tent again. "It is a nice city," he said as we were setting up, "and many of the inns around here are good, but they are too rich for my tastes. In smaller towns, I would pay for it, but not here."

I didn't object, and the plaza was quiet through the night, though I thought I heard someone walking around quietly. That got me paranoid enough to sneak out and look around, but I didn't catch whoever it was, and besides, most of the wagons had been emptied.

Morning went similarly, except there was no shopping period between everyone getting up and breakfast. Lacking anything important to do, I ended up doing my standing guard routine again, only I shifted positions every now and again. I ended up catching sight of a street urchin who looked like he wanted to go thieving but nudging him with a force field from my bracers spooked him off. Since nobody saw me do anything, nobody even knew--about him, or that I'd scared him off.

There was another break for lunch, and Haal asked me to close the shop and stand guard there for the early part of the afternoon while he went looking through the local bazaar for things he could resell elsewhere. I took that seriously, standing vigil in front of the wagon while he was gone, but nobody seemed to care until he returned with a sack and a wicker basket that he loaded into his wagon without comment.

The late afternoon was finally interrupted by a thief--and I immediately realized it was more than one. One clever young man got himself noticed and then sprinted away with something small, but when attention was on him, I immediately noticed two more men on the other side of the stall, faces stone cold and motions very subtle as they put things away.

My god-given gifts could have stopped them there, but instead I used the bracers only to track them, and moved out of sight as quickly as I could, keeping an eye on the two as they moved for a side alley. I wasn't physically strong enough to stop them--but I could pretend to be, thanks to the jade bracers. The two were starting to split up as I came up behind them, and although they should have been able to get away... well, they didn't. I snagged a big handful of cloth from each of their backs and lifted, and the surprised yell from one of them--only one, as the other immediately went straight to fighting, a knife coming out of nowhere--got the attention of others.

The knife attempted to stab at me a couple times, which I prevented with psionic powers, again, but then he tried to cut away his shirt instead to get away, which was probably wiser. I shook him, using that to disguise when I knocked the knife out of his hand, and turned the two back towards the cart they'd stolen from.

It took the merchant a moment to realize I was bringing the two to him, but as soon as he turned to glance at his wares, I saw his face flush, and he jabbed a finger at some obviously missing items. "Hey!" he shouted, turning to face the two of them, now actively furious. "Did you steal from me?"

The other tried to pull his knife in that moment, but I shook him, and he dropped the knife on his own, after accidentally stabbing himself in the arm.

Two guards came and wrestled the brats, and I let them down, stepping away as soon as they had things in hand and releasing a mostly-fake sigh of exhaustion. Because yes, that was stressful, but everything that I'd use the god-given artifacts to do... I had basically spent no amount of my own energy on. They were powerful, and I appreciated that, but I also wasn't eager to reveal what was going on. So... it was probably best just to pretend that I was using my own hidden powers instead of an artifact's.

In less time than it took me to 'arrest' the two boys, the guards had searched their pockets and found the stolen goods. I took no interest after that--whatever the price for thieving was, it wasn't going to be a pleasant thing to look on. Instead, I collected the two knives, deciding to keep them, since I doubt anyone would argue I earned them. They weren't great knives, made of some kind of iron alloy that wasn't obvious to me, and the one that had been used against me was suddenly very blunt, but I pocketed them anyway. I could practice my Fabricate on them and use the metal for something more interesting.

Before I could walk away, though, the trader caught me, and took me aside briefly. "I appreciate it," he said, dropping a few silvers in my hand and patting me on the shoulder. I nodded back at him, and went back over to Haal, who was looking impressed.

"You've been holding out on me," he said, with a smirk. "You're not just a simple traveler, but then, I suppose I knew that, eh?" He shook his head. "If you want me to buy those knives off of you--"

"No thanks," I said. "I'll figure out something to do with them."

Haal looked at me, a little suspicious all of a sudden, but shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "I know we'll be splitting up after we leave here, so I wanted to do something good for you, but..."

"And I do appreciate it, Haal," I said, and put a hand on his shoulder. "But I do want to keep a few of my own secrets. I promise, I'll make better use of them than those two did."

A way from us, we could still hear the three thieves being led into a back alley, I wasn't sure whether for brutal murder, a beating, or maybe cutting off a hand. One way or another, I wasn't planning on looking into it.

Haal still seemed nervous, but shrugged, and slapped one hand on my shoulder as well. "Okay," he said, simply, and that was that, as far as he was concerned.

Somehow, it was and it wasn't easy to hold in my head how differently I'd treated a couple thieves and the Grand Vizier, versus treating Haal and the traders. People here might think, for now, that I was a good guy--or they might think I was just dangerous, or something else. And people in Aurnal, the capital, would probably end up thinking I was just dangerous, or maybe evil, depending on how they spun news of the events. For me, though, I mostly just let others decide how I'd treat them by how they treated me.

What else could I do, really? Even if the bracers would let me see through people's lies or something like that--and I hadn't tried--I didn't like relying on them like that. It seemed like a good way to get manipulated by the gods, and that was also something I didn't want. Though, I suppose, it's possible that's what was already happening, one way or another.