The Taleweaver

Harbend Garak was a long way from home, even a long way from his storefront in Hasselden. But with the western raiders plying their trade along the shores again he didn't dare ship anything all the way to distant Khi.

Years now. I know Verd better than Hasselden by now. Strange turn of luck. He remembered the tedious hours at late evening spent studying the outworlder language. Paid off in the end they did. One of only five independents to get outworlder clients. Guess I should be happy. Of course he was never awarded contracts as often as he would have had he represented a trading house, but he was content. That opportunity and his skill allowed him to avoid sharing the destiny of several other independent traders who found themselves destitute as trade became increasingly difficult under the pressure of the raiders.

Being a foreigner to Keen himself he found the outworlders to be just another group of strangers with peculiar customs. He eventually made faster progress in understanding their wants and needs than his fellow merchants, almost all native to Keen.

He slowly looked around himself wondering what this group of outworlders would be like and how eager they would be for local jewelry and other items of art.

A desk, behind which a female outworlder clerk sat, was a work of art, a wonderful item of pear tree almost certainly crafted in Erkateren by a skilled magecrafter.

He coughed quietly in his hand, stretched his back and rose. Waiting was always tedious, especially during summer when the heat sometimes made the terminal building almost unbearable.

The hall wasn't very large, maybe twenty paces east to west and thirty north to south. The glass sliding doors facing west were still in place, opening and closing by themselves whenever a merchant happened to walk past them. To the left of the doors were two sofas, with four merchants seated in them, three of which wore the green round-hat typical of the trading houses of Krante, a large town an eightdays ride southeast from Verd, three days with coach.

The last seat was occupied by a woman Harbend had proposed for invitation into the group of merchants allowed to trade with the outworlders half a year earlier. She belonged to a minor trading house in Verd.

Harbend greeted her silently with a slight bow and was rewarded with a smile of recognition as she stretched her booted legs under the table. Not a beautiful woman, he thought, but competent. She was stocky and always looked out of place, more so with her strange taste for wearing men's clothes. She was also one of the few merchants he had come to know during his years here.

He started searching for Olvar de Dagd, master of the richest trading house in Dagd, and always present whenever she was. It was no secret they shared more than their profession, and Harbend wondered what made Master de Dagd take the plump woman to his bed.

Harbend, concrete wall to his back, looked across a dirty carpet, once red but now worn to a muted brown, and found the master merchant among a group of seven. They stood in the leftmost corner closest to the pear tree desk rather than using the hard chairs lining the walls.

Olvar's bright blue contrasted against the gaudy yellow shirts the others wore. Yellow and green, yellow for Verd and the green added for a cosmopolitan touch. They all wore silk, probably imported from Khanati and dyed in Ri Khi, and very, very expensive.

One merchant leaned over the desk exchanging friendly banter with the blond outworlder woman sitting behind it. Her white blouse lacked adornments of any kind and the absence of jewelry made Harbend think of a meal served without a proper wine. At least she had added some color to her face creating a contrast to her blue or maybe green eyes. Properly clothed she was probably beautiful. The outworlders always seemed to prefer drab servant's colors, a fact that still amazed him.

The remaining three merchants sat immediately to Harbend's right, one sharing the leather sofa he had just left, and the two others occupied in a conversation almost lying in the last sofa. One had placed his hard heeled shoes on the polished table, making Harbend wince slightly. Behind them he saw the doors through which only outworlders were allowed. In difference from the entrance those doors were not made of glass but of a solid metal so deep blue that it was almost black. The metal alone was worth a fortune here, but then the outworlders seemed to have an abundance of it.

Turning his attention to his shoes he noticed a mark and dug for a handkerchief in a pocket. He polished the silver band hiding the laces. They were good shoes, sturdy but still elegant, and he kept them in good shape with a mixture of fat and perfume he always bought whenever he had a reason to visit Hasselden.

He traveled too much to like the idea of breaking in new footwear. Blistered feet could ruin an otherwise perfect day. When he was finished Harbend saw that the outworlder traders had arrived into the hall and were heading for the desk.

He listened absently while outworlder traders were paired with local merchants and made their way through the glass doors. Fifteen names, fifteen traders but still no Gregory Sanders. So, he was to be assigned the last out of sixteen as usual.

A sudden commotion closer to the desk made him look up with more interest. A middle-aged man clad in something horribly shiny and red with impossibly blue hair crowning the nightmare, immediately caught his attention. The unseemly sight transfixed him until the woman behind the desk broke the spell.

"Oh my Gooooooooood! It's Arthur Wallman! Oh my Gooooooooood!"

The screeching all but brought Harbend to his knees. The stranger flashed a perfect but pained smile to her while a small horde of outworlders flocked around him.

"Autograph, please!"

"Could you sign my color-screen? For my son, you see."

"A signature on my hat? Yes, right there. Thank you Mr Wallman."

During the madness the stranger regained his composure and Harbend felt strangely drawn to the almost unnatural air of confident charisma radiating from him. Then the aura of confidence vanished as soon as it had appeared, and Harbend gasped at the expression of utter desolation taking its place.

Whoever this man was, he wasn't one of the regular traders, but Harbend accepted the strange man as his client even though the name, Arthur Wallman, didn't correspond to the one Harbend had been assigned.

Arthur winced uncomfortably at the screeching, but he quickly put on his professional mask. Soon he was signing all kinds of peculiar objects, all the while longing for the ordeal to end.

He glanced at his wrist computer knowing he would have to add the local time system to its data banks. The communicator he would have to disable, but he hadn't exactly come here to make any extensive calls anyway. For reasons still unexplained to him visiting traders were forbidden to bring any functioning portable communication devices, and the locals apparently had means to find out.

Almost a tenth of the early years' travelers were caught and permanently banned from the planet before the lesson was finally learned, and he didn't plan to play the role of a very slow student.

His fellow travelers had all left the room together with the locals.

Not much of a loss. After all he'd had his credentials falsified, and while on board the merchantman he found himself forced to hold on to his lies about a secret news coverage for his newscasting company. After a few days the novelty of having a famous media personality among them wore off and he spent the rest of the voyage in solitude, which, he found out, suited him perfectly.

The members of the crowd demanding his attention earlier had vanished back to their previous doings whether those were machine repairs, paper handling or cargo lifting, and he found himself almost alone again.

I wonder how many of those stationed here came just because of my holos, Arthur thought.

Another man in the room, one Arthur had failed to notice earlier, met his eyes. Short and slender, as of Asian origin, maybe 160 centimeters tall, straight, black hair shining with a metallic sheen, most of it in a knot to the left but head otherwise shaved clean. In his mid thirties if people aged the same way here as on Earth, and until their twenties they were supposed to. Bleached but richly decorated, baggy linen trousers were partially covered by a shirt of the same material buttoned only over the chest. The clothes told Arthur hot weather probably was what he had waiting. It made sense. He'd arrived in late summer local time.

Of course, my assigned representative. Poor bastard, he's in for a surprise.

The man rose and greeted Arthur in a singing, outlandish voice. "Harbend Garak, at your service, Lord Wallman."

"Do I need your services?"

"None needed, only offered, my lord."

Irritation still clinging to him as a result of the verbal assault from the hastily gathered fan-club, Arthur lashed out: "Let's get this straight. To begin with I'm nobody's bloody lord and what grand services are yours to offer?"

That made Harbend blanch slightly. It probably wasn't the start he had hoped for and Arthur knew he was being rude. He didn't know if the stranger grasped Terran English fully.

"My fault sir. I am a trader and help visiting traders when they are here," Harbend tried again.

"And what if such a visiting trader eventually turned out to be no trader at all, but something completely different?" This was getting fun. Arthur enjoyed verbal fencing and wasn't above taking any advantage he could. What wrong could there be goading the stranger a little?

"Then I would still offer him to find a good place to sleep and eat, good sir."

"Then it has to be good indeed. I am God's greatest gift to mankind, or mankind's greatest to God. Opinions vary dependent on who you ask."

"Which god?"

What's so difficult. Here I'm baiting the hook and you won't bite. "Then so be it my insistent trader. My trade is not with ordinary wares. What I sell has dubious lasting worth where I come from and even less here," Arthur said and bent in an exaggerated bow before continuing, "but do not despair, my gracing your lands with my presence is not brought on by monetary needs but rather personal ones," he finished after standing straight again.

"That would answer a question I had in mind. I take it you are traveling, ah, what is the word again? Incognito?"

No, he wouldn't bite, and Arthur had waited for this question anyway. The identity he'd bought didn't fool anyone. He was too well known, but bribing the communications officer on the space ship had taken care of that problem until he arrived at Theta 47. It was time to end the joking.

"You're quite right, my good man. Now, what do you have in mind?" Arthur answered eager to leave the subject.

Weeks before anyone can act on my being here anyway.

"It is already late, sir. We leave and take the train to Verd," Harbend said and started for the doors.

Arthur followed him through the sliding doors and stepped outdoors onto a gravel road. It had stopped raining but the air was still filled with the aroma of water and wet earth. The rain soaked gravel was slowly steaming and it was uncomfortably hot.

Arthur saw the queuing pairs of local and foreign traders waiting to receive luggage and beyond them a large group of riders. Thirty or so but only a few of them mounted. All wore the same green and yellow uniforms with swords hanging by their sides.

"Crossbows?" Arthur asked, surprise mixed with disbelief spicing his voice.

"Crossbows," Harbend acknowledged. "They are the Free Inquisition," he continued as if it explained everything.

"Free Inquisition?"

"Ah, well, a leftover from some local troubles a hundred years ago or so."

"So, is there an Imprisoned Inquisition, or what?"

"No, not really, or at least I strongly advise against any such suggestion as long as you are heard. Keen has its own Inquisition open only for citizens. The Free Inquisition is open for anyone who is fit and skilled enough and shares Keen's view on the use of the gift."

"And that view is?" Arthur asked while he shuffled forward in the queue.

"Using the gift is banned in Keen. Any wielder of the art caught in the act is shot on sight. It is not too uncommon anyone suspected is killed before the real investigation starts."

"Oh, I see," Arthur said glumly. "And why are they here?"

"They are still a bit edgy about you outworlders so they control anything brought in by your sky ships."

"I still don't understand. How can they do that, and by the way, why do you say them and not we?"

Harbend frowned. "The Inquisition, no matter whether it be the Holy or the Free, has access to powerful tools draining magic with which to make certain whatever strange items you bring still works while within reach of their power." He smirked before continuing, "As for my exclusion it is simple enough. I come from a land far away to the south and do not share their views on the use of the art."

"It still doesn't make sense. We're supposed to trade our wares in a city filled with this magic of yours."

Harbend smiled. "Magic has not always been banned. There was a time when magecrafters lived and worked in Verd. Once it was the very center of those artisans. The use of the art is forbidden, but the people in Keen are sensible enough to use what is already there. They have always been a practical people."

"If so, why ban magic?" Arthur asked.

"They were unluckier than most with the power struggles between mages. A lot of dirty small scale wars hit Keen and those living here." A frown grew on Harbend's face. "And one big one, of course," he finished, and for a moment there was a shade of regret glimmering in his eyes.

Arthur mused on the information for a while, and then, as had been the case for half a year, his thoughts turned darker, far darker, and he was once again trapped in his own internal nightmare.

When Harbend didn't receive any further comments he turned around eying the ugly sky port. The slated roof with its two small gun towers, manned by outworlder soldiers, were the same as always. From both ends of the building an ugly wall stretched over three hundred paces in each direction. The entire complex resembled a long, straight piece of a giant, polished horn lying in the mud.

The horses not bound at the arrival gate stood grazing by the wall still saddled and harnessed. He gave the troops a thorough look. Uniforms dirty, leather showing cracks where it hadn't been oiled properly and the yellow and green bore telltale spots of earlier meals. Some of the men had tired eyes and they hadn't even assigned a man to check the horses feeding by the wall. Of a full squadron less than ten men were doing anything useful at the arrival gate. Discipline must have grown lax over the last year.

Harbend threw Arthur a glance but he was deeply occupied with thoughts of his own. Daylight exposed more of the outworlder. Face angular and well kept. Blue hair that must have been colored, because brown was hidden deep beneath it. Eyes shifting between blue and green. Hands that had not seen hard work in a long time ended in too large fingers revealing he was turning fat. As all outworlders he was taller by far than the average here.

Then there were the clothes. All of them red, shifting grades of red, all shiny and none of it fitting together. Something never deciding if it was a shirt or a jacket was buttoned onto a pair of trousers so tight only the fact that it was of outworlder design and make kept it from bursting. All in all the outfit hurt Harbend's eyes.

Arthur forced his thoughts to the present. It was ironic that the stranger also was a foreigner here. Maybe he could share some insight in what it was like living here as one not really belonging.

Arthur recalled an incident on the surface not too long after the insane, criminal attempt to invade the planet. A decade or so earlier the locals sent cavalry to take the spaceport by force. Two thousand men died in the mud that day without ever coming close enough to use their weapons. There had been no other attempt since and somehow the locals had chosen to produce an official report as humiliatingly unlikely as the one written by the federation military after the failed assault on the planet. An exchange of military stupidity finally resulted in constructive communications between the Terran Federation and the local government here.

Strange how things turn out in the end. I know I should have shot that extra episode, but what the hell.

Ahead of him each of the traders received his or her luggage and was forced to open it, spreading its contents over several tables. What appeared to be the commander of the Inquisition troops checked that computers, holo cams and viewers still worked as described by the owner.

Damn! They're not fast, are they? We'll be standing here all bloody day!

Finally Terran trader, local merchant and luggage slowly lumbered away on the unpaved road leading to a ridge west of the launch port. A pair of rails ran alongside the road and Arthur suspected that whatever rode them was a far cry from the supersonic magnetic trains he was used to from home. As if to prove him right a number of black wagons hissed past him, solar panels glittering in the sun, and began their painfully slow ascent to the ridge.

Crap! he thought. It promised to be a very slow day. He turned to Harbend. "Three hours on the train to the capital! I should be able to see the damn town from here."

Harbend gave him an amused look. "I would not worry too much if I were you. The train to Verd is a bit faster than that."

"I bloody hope so!" Arthur replied aghast at the thought of spending half a day caught in a closed wagon traveling at walking pace.

Harbend merely grinned in return, two rows of yellow, but otherwise healthy teeth showing.

Harbend watched the queue where traders were paired two and two. They were already exchanging news and gossip with each other, a guffaw interjected from time to time to reward an especially juicy piece of information, but the man he'd been assigned seemed aloof.

At least most of this batch have been here before.

Each time an outworlder trader returned a little bit of color would be added to his or her garb, and those who'd been trading here for five years or more often wore clothes tailored in Verd and could easily have been mistaken for a local had it not been for the shiny information devices looking like decorated mirrors they all carried on their arms. And being a head taller than the rest of us, he added as an afterthought.

This time the sky ship had brought only two newcomers apart from Arthur. Their gray matching open jackets and narrow trousers were supposed to be very elegant attire where they came from, but when they finally arrived in Verd they would learn that only servants wore those colors. Well, that also left the question of Arthur. The man simply couldn't have been here before, but he could of course have learned how one was supposed to dress here. From there he must have proceeded to get it all horribly wrong.

Harbend kept his silence and watched the familiar process of Inquisition troops playing the part of customs officers, being just a little bit too arrogant in their attempts to humiliate the outworlder traders.

Grow up! We are the same all over the world, all over two worlds it would seem, he realized with amusement. As long as traders made money the treatment by lowly officials mattered little. Besides, all insults had to be translated and probably lost most in the process. Harbend wasn't sure all outworlder traders were even aware there had ever been an attempt at humiliation by someone they considered being beneath them anyway. He chuckled and stepped in line with Arthur.

They continued waiting while the sun set far too slowly. The heat combined with humidity soon made them sweat. The loss of water eventually had Arthur thirsty and with thirst came irritation.

After an eternity in the heat he was allowed to approach the tables. About to copy the motions of the traders he'd seen going through the procedure earlier the commanding officer suddenly blocked his way. A lengthy smattering of words followed a smug smile.

"He wants to know what your business is here," Harbend translated.

"That's not all of it, is it?" No bloody way that question takes a speech to deliver!

"We do not need to..."

"All of it, now!"

Harbend shrugged, showing surprise at the sudden edge of command in Arthur's voice. "If that is your wish. He asked why he should let a," he halted momentarily, "jester like you pass as you are obviously not a decent trader."

Arthur's irritation rose but he fought it down. The uniformed excuse for an untrained dog would pay later. "Tell them I trade in knowledge."

Harbend hastily obliged. The officer sniffed but seemed content with the answer.

Two bags were brought from a nearby table and emptied and the soldiers rummaged through its contents. They looked up in surprise when they didn't find any of the items they were used to see accompanying the visiting traders and were barely satisfied with checking the objects Arthur carried on his person. The bags were eventually loaded onto the waiting cart and the commander started waving Arthur through.

He didn't move and confronted the commander with a haughty smile.

You think I've been preoccupied enough to spend three hours without noticing the lack of efficiency you show? Military or no military, Arthur always kept a good eye for evaluating personnel, and the apes here had the stomach to insult him! I don't fear you. I don't fear anything any longer. You think you can threaten someone who dies every night? I'll teach you fear!

"I take it you're done with my luggage. Now, could your servants please proceed to check that my very clothes won't conjure a demon at my command?"

He received a blank stare in return, and Harbend hesitantly started to translate.

"Why do you anger the staff-master?" he asked when finished.

"I just dislike him. Could you just tell them to be quick about it?"

Harbend shrugged and complied. The man Harbend had identified as staff-master retorted, anger clearly heard in his voice and Arthur saw his eyes thinning and knew that the bait had been taken.

"He says you had better reconsider your attitude or they will confiscate your goods."

Arthur laughed softly, but he remembered the lesson he intended to teach the uniformed idiots facing him and kept most of his mirth to himself.

"Tell the staff-master he should show less interest in my goods and more care for his horses. Tell him that it would be unfortunate if all of his men had a riding accident later today."

Harbend gave Arthur a questioning look, suddenly looking afraid. "Why..."

"Just do it!"

When Harbend was finished the staff-master was white with rage, hand slowly searching at his side. Arthur stared the man in his eyes, smiling broadly and it was with grim satisfaction he saw rage giving way to fear. Mouth slightly open, eyes no longer able to keep contact, a nervous flicker of the nostrils. Yes! The pig would break.

"I don't have all day. Either check my clothes or tell your trash to get the hell out of my sight!" Arthur waved at the cart. "When I return next time I expect your lackeys to have a better vehicle waiting for me."

Harbend looked at Arthur in frightened wonder and reluctantly translated. The effect was astonishing. All soldiers grabbed for their weapons, but when Arthur took one step forward they backed away realizing they no longer had the support of their own officer. Two of them looked around in bewilderment, but no help was to be found.

Arthur pointed at the cart. He growled a command he knew Harbend couldn't understand but the soldiers grasped the meaning of it and moved out of Arthur's range as if he had threatened them.

"Harbend, I guess we're on our way then," Arthur said and climbed the cart without turning his head.

Harbend ran to Arthur's side nervously looking over his shoulder, but the crossbow quarrel he seemed to expect never flew and they were soon driving towards the ridge. They had almost reached it before Harbend dared to break the silence.

"Did you come here to die?" Harbend yelled. "Are you carrying your funeral altar among your wares, or by the gods, what were you thinking of?"

Arthur gave him a pained look. "They needed a lesson in attitude. I was the teacher they waited for."

"But what was it all about? I saw the fear of death in their faces."

Arthur turned. "Oh, they were probably only embarrassed," he said.

"Embarrassed?" Harbend was still livid with fear and rage. "Gods, do not try that on me!"

"They should be. Some time ago troops from here reportedly experienced a riding accident. Official version, of course."

Arthur could hear short, heavy breaths slowly returning to normal. Harbend was calming down somewhat. "I heard about that. What happened?"

"The normal. They fell off their horses."

"How many?" Harbend asked.

Arthur glanced at the tanned face beside him. "Two thousand soldiers, all at the same time. All fatally. Very unfortunate."

Harbend was silent for a while. "That was still a dangerous thing to do," he said. "You have been here for less than a day and you already start making enemies."

Arthur didn't respond. Harbend was probably right, but Arthur had felt out of balance for a long while now. He was more concerned with his own lack of interest in what he saw, heard and smelled when arriving at a new world for the first time. He used to pay attention to his surroundings, but the last six months had passed as if wrapped in a blanket woven from strands of oblivion, and now he rarely bothered taking in what wasn't born from wrath. Danger, at least, made him feel alive.

But then, if he was to be honest, the men manning the gun towers would never have allowed any harm to come to the famous Arthur Wallman. Almost with regret he admitted that he had never been in any real danger.

Harbend noted how Arthur turned inwards again and spent the rest of the slow but shaky ride watching the red gravel on the road between the ears of the mule. He had calmed down by now but hoped the strange trader wouldn't bring an economic fiasco by behaving this way later, because that was something Harbend could not afford. News from Hasselden was troubled these days and he desperately needed money to stave off a threatening bankruptcy despite his trading skills allowing him to see bad times through this far. Either that or throw his two employees on the street, and honor forbade such an action.

The road continued into what at first sight looked like a cave but at a closer look was clearly man made. Gravel was replaced by concrete and daylight by lamplight. The train for Verd waited for them in the middle of the tunnel ready to run out to the farmlands west of the ridge. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke and soot.

"I'll be damned!" Arthur's voice told Harbend his fellow traveler had finally noticed one part of their ride was coming to an end.

"We are the last. We should enter," Harbend said.

"A locomotive, a real, honest, black, steam engine. I haven't seen one outside a theme park before. Three hours to the capital. No bloody wonder!"

"Still the fastest means of traveling in this part of the world. For the people living where we are going it is regarded as a mechanical wonder."

"Oh, the wonders of technology," Arthur answered scornfully as he mounted the stairs.

Harbend shrugged and climbed inside. He sat down by a window and with the tunnel being far cooler than the outside he immediately felt how soaked with sweat his clothes were. Greatly discomforted he adjusted his wet trousers.

A sudden tug suggested that the train had started. A distant rumble confirmed it and the lights in the tunnel slowly passed by.

After a short while they were out in the open again and Harbend leaned backwards watching the landscape change character. The ridge marked the western border of the small territory given to the outworlders and on this side of it farmsteads, planted fields and herds of grazing horses and cattle made a stark contrast to the barren lands surrounding the sky port. The large herds of horses played a vital part in Keen's dominance over the region. Not only were they a necessity for the cavalry but they also kept the all important trade alive. Keen thrived on craft and trade. Much more so than his homeland in distant Khi.

Thinking of home made him strangely depressed. Even though coastal defenses and an exceptional army made any invasion attempt impossible, Keen's lack of a strong navy left the raiders masters of the sea. That effectively cut his chances to pay his home a visit, not to speak of trading.

As they passed more fields he noted that harvest would come shortly, detachments of soldiers helping farmers during the busy harvest days already marching through the villages. With harvest completed an eightday of frantic celebrations awaited the farmers. It was tradition. Verd celebrated its own version of the festival.

He turned to Arthur only to find he'd already fallen asleep. Harbend smiled. A long day already and it wasn't over yet. He decided to steal a few hours of sleep himself.