The Legend of El Shashi Read Online Free PDF Page A

by dappling willows. There was no need to see her face to know she was beautiful. The man called Tortha stepped back; relinquishing his hold as a wardog leaves a corpse–reluctantly, baring its teeth in a blood-dipped snarl. From behind him stepped a slight figure, robed in dove grey from head to foot, neither short nor tall but comfortably in between. My eyes could not penetrate the shadows beneath her hood. But she was rich, and cultured, and despite her disguise, completely out of place in Elaki Fountain’s steamy marketplace.
    There is a trader’s instinctive skill of sizing up one’s clients. Few make good profits without this grephe-talent. Often the body or hands grant clues no speech can convey, and so it was with this woman. An image flashed to mind: me as a torfly entangled in her spun-silk web, a delectable but deadly entanglement. My fingers curled around the sheathed Lykki sword. A snake coiled in my gut.
    The better to disguise my unease, I lowered my gaze. Proper deference to one of high station. “How may I assist you, Honoria …?”
    “The sword. Name your price.”
    Not for her the nuanced approach. “This is not just any sword,” I began, glancing from the woman to the brute. “This is the finest example of its craft in all Roymere–” Tortha’s deepening scowl reminded me of my mortality. I hurriedly adjusted my sales pitch, “–but for you, I can offer the excellent price of two … of one hundred Lortiti Reals.”
    Tortha was grinning, I noticed sourly, no doubt enjoying my discomfort. The woman did not hesitate. “Done and well bargained for,” she purred. “Give the trader his due, Tortha.”
    My hands quivered as I accepted the heavy pouch from his paw. One hundred was a fair price for a blade of superior quality, but it was still a substantial sum, the province of the truly wealthy. Janos would be delighted.
    “Aren’t you going to check it?”
    “Check it? Why, Honoria, I would not be so presumptuous–”
    “It could be ormetal.”
    I balanced the pouch in my palm, hearing a reassuring clink, conscious of the heft and texture of the thick coins beneath the pliant leather. “I’m certain that all is in order.”
    “Check the bag!”
    Her command made me jump like a startled bullfrog. I fell to loosening the buckles as frenziedly as Yuthe’s nectar lay within and immortality itself were in my grasp, all the time thinking: Why was this so important to them? Why a sword? What were they truly buying?
    But oh! The sight of one hundred Lortiti Reals softly glimmering, the thick pure gold of the highest quality, the hallmark of the golden marmoset graven upon each side … I must confess, a fool’s grin lay plastered across my face as I peered within the pouch.
    In that instant, a pale, slim hand reached up to the brocade collar of my jerkin and the woman remarked, “What a very fine g arment you’re wearing, trader–a garment worthy of a Hassutl! Where did you get it?”
    “It was a gift.”
    “Oh?”
    “From the same man in Yarabi Vale who made the sword, actually, a craftsman of great skill and repute –Janos the Armourer.”
    “And how excellently it fits your broad shoulders!” she exclaimed, stepping closer to examine the beadwork.
    Myrrh? I wondered at her perfume. Myrrh for embalming, and what else? Cinnamon? Cloves? Most unusual … and cloying. I felt odd. Was it the heat? What had I just said to her? My memory of our conversation was as dust sliding between my fingers.
    She said, “I am called Jyla, and I have an eye for quality work. That is why I picked out your Lykki short sword. I’m always in the market for a good sword.”
    I coughed. Such a remark I might have attracted in an alehouse, or even a brothel, but never in my experience from a lady of her undoubted station. Innuendo, yes, but as subtle as a charging pachyderm. This was beyond flattery. Suddenly, I could not quickly enough see the backs of this strange pair.
    I snapped the pouch shut.