"What"s it worth to you to know?"
"Nothing." Orem looked around. All he could see were the backs of common buildings on one hand and on the other the high garden walls of the great houses, with their cruel spear-topped iron ridges. Except for the alley to Stone Road, there was only one way to go, so Orem set out along the dirt street. The thief padded behind him.
"Get away from me," Orem said.
"I followed you all this way."
"You"ll never get my coppers."
"You said you"d hire me."
"If I get a job." But suddenly the boy was not so neatly catalogued as a clever thief. "You I get a job." But suddenly the boy was not so neatly catalogued as a clever thief. "You believed me?"
"You look too stupid to lie."
"Then what makes you think I"ll get a job?"
"Because you wouldn"t let me go when I kicked your face." The boy giggled. "You"re a bad fighter, you know. A girl could beat you."
Orem felt himself flush with anger, but he said nothing. The road was widening, and now there were some sleazy shops fronting on the street. In the middle of the road was a short round wall like a well housing, made of crumbly bricks. Orem made to go around it, but heard a sound. Like singing, coming from the well. He stopped.
"It"s the cistern," said the boy. "All the time singing. Means nothing. Cistern"s empty."
"Why? Drought?"
"They"re for a siege. There"s never a siege of Inwit. Besides, you"d drown the voices."
Orem stepped to the cistern rim and leaned over to listen. Along with the sound he was greeted by a smell so fetid that he reeled backward and gasped and choked.
"Since it"s empty," said the boy, "everybody dumps their slops in. And s.h.i.ts quite direct." As if to demonstrate, the boy jumped up and sat perilously on the wall, his backside leaning far over the edge. Unceremoniously he defecated, then waited with his head c.o.c.ked. "Hear the splash? It must be half a mile down."
"What about the voices?"
"Probably a choir of rats. They live fine on manure. Aren"t you a farmer? Don"t you know about the magical properties of manure?" While he talked, the boy wiped himself with his left hand, then spat on it and rubbed it in the dirt till it was dry. "Here," he said, gesturing at Orem"s bag. "Let us have a little water." Orem shook his head. "Oh, won"t share even water, is that it?"
"It"s from my father"s spring. For the fountain at Little Temple."
"What are you, a pilgrim? You have a priest"s face. Like a hungry rat."
"I studied with priests."
"That"s it, then." The boy nodded wisely. "I knew you could read. I can read a little. Taught myself."
"The voices from the cistern. How long have they been going on?"
The boy shrugged. "All my my life." life."
Orem recited the Seventh Warning of Prester Zenzil: "Do not learn the songs of voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells."
The boy looked at him quizzically. "You can"t learn them. They got no words. An"t no one understands them, anyway."
Orem pulled his wrap halfway down and hoisted himself to the lip of the cistern to empty himself. The voices came more clearly, an echo of wails and high singing that suddenly filled him with fear. Why should I be afraid? he wondered. Then he looked at the young thief and thought he saw murder in his eyes. Yes, murder, and what better time than now, with Orem helplessly over a pit that went deep into the earth where no one would find the corpse even if anyone bothered to look for a scrawny young man with a pauper"s pa.s.s. The boy could just run up and push him and he"d be dead. And there-yes, the boy was poised, wasn"t he? And leaning in! "Stay back, or by G.o.d-" And then his bowels opened and emptied and he sprang from the cistern wall and backed away from the thief.
"Just a fancy," the boy said, smiling. "Didn"t mean nothing. Meant just to put a scare in you."
Orem did as the boy had done, wiped himself and then his hand in the dirt. Then he pulled up his wrap. He was trembling. Not just because the child had thought to kill him, but because the voice in the cistern had seemed to warn him so. Was this, perhaps, a touch of true magic? For the first time in his life had a spell touched him?
"I"m sorry," said the boy, watching Orem"s face. "It was a joke."
Orem said nothing, just walked from the cistern and out into the road. Only a few steps and he knew where he was, p.i.s.s Road, with p.i.s.s Gate at the western end of it.
"Don"t leave me," said the boy.
Orem faced him angrily. "Don"t you know when you"re not wanted?"
"My name is Flea Buzz."
"I don"t want your name."
"I"m telling you anyway. It was the name my mother gave me. She"s from Brack, it"s ever so far to the east, she was stolen by sea pirates and eventually ended up here as a p.i.s.ser. She got a pa.s.s. They give names like Flea Buzz there, because it was the first thing she saw and first thing she heard after I was born. Her husband is dead at the bottom of the sea. He has pearls instead of eyes."
"What makes you think I care?"
"You"re listening, aren"t you? Anyway, it"s all lies. My father, he"s alive enough. He calls me Pin p.r.i.c.k, and worse things when he"s angry. He"s got no pa.s.s, so he has to hide in the Swamp when the guards come. I get no pa.s.s until my mother marries another pa.s.s man. So I steal. I do all right. I"ll steal for you, if you like."
"I don"t want you to steal for me."
"The truth is my father"s dead. My mother killed him when he went at her with a club. We buried him in the garden. He"ll be flowers all over if the dogs don"t open him up. Only last night."
"It"s a lie."
"Only partly. Let me come with you."
"Why? What do I have that you want? If you think I"ll give you a copper to leave me alone you"re going to weep at the tale I have to tell."
"My mother"s gone, pa.s.s and all."
"What"s that to me?"
"Her lover took her away after they killed my dad."
Lover. It was a strange word. What part had love in Inwit? Yet the boy looked afraid, his eyes looked weak and he was ready to spring, ready to run at a word. Was this true, then? Had he no parents?
"I"ve got nothing," Orem said. "Little enough for me, nothing for you."
"I know the city. I"ll be useful."
"I"ll find my own way."
"If the guard catches me I can be your brother, and then I won"t lose an ear for having no pa.s.s."
It hadn"t occurred to Orem. That they"d take an ear from a child.
"They wouldn"t."
"G.o.d"s name they would."
What did he need with a boy along? Make it look like he was trying to feed a family, like he wasn"t free, get in his way, keep him from a job most likely. Go away. "Come on then."
Flea Buzz grinned, and suddenly all the pathos was gone. Was he a fraud, after all? Orem cursed himself for a fool. Yet he did not send him away, even so.
"What"s your name," asked the boy.
"They call me Scanthips."
"By G.o.d, a name that"s worse than mine."
"I"ll call you Flea. That"s not a bad name."
"And I"ll call you Scant."
"You"ll call me Sir."
"Like h.e.l.l. Come on, them as I"ve heard was hired was hired on Shop Street." And they plunged into the crowd on p.i.s.s Road.
Flea was a companion such as Orem had never had before. He was so jaunty that even the coldness of the shopkeepers was cause for laughter. Flea would bow and elaborately compliment the shopkeepers that they met-those that didn"t drive them out immediately. And when they had been sent away, Flea would parody and mock. "Oh, I love you like a son, but if I had a son I"d have to send him away without work, lads, you must understand, times is so hard that if it goes on like this another twenty years I"ll waste away and die myself, die myself!"
Orem laughed often because of Flea, and covered far more ground because Flea knew his way through Inwit, but by late afternoon it was clear there"d be no work for him on Shop Street. He needed to rest, and Flea led him into the huge cemetery. The trees were a haven to Orem, like a touch of home, even if there was no underbrush and the trees were cropped and tame. A touch of home, only there were no birds. Orem noticed it and said so.
"The dead take them and ride," Flea said. "They go everywhere on birds" backs. It"s why you never kill a bird. There might be a spirit there who can"t get home, and he"ll haunt you forever."
"The dead are gathered up in the nets of G.o.d," Orem said.
Flea looked at him blankly. "I thought you weren"t a priest."
"I"m not anything if I don"t find work," Orem said. "A man is is what he does to earn his bread. A carpenter, a farmer, a halfpriest, or a beggar." what he does to earn his bread. A carpenter, a farmer, a halfpriest, or a beggar."
"Or a thief?" asked Flea. There was an edge of anger to his voice.
"Why not, if it"s how you live?"
"I steal, Scant, but that"s not what I am." am."
"What are you, then?"
"A man is the greatest, boldest thing he dares to do. I I play the snakes." play the snakes."
Orem shrugged. "I don"t know what that means."
Flea grinned. "Then you"ll have to see, won"t you, Scant."
At the Snakepit Orem guessed they were near the Swamp when the smell of the town became a reek, and what huts there were stood on stilts. "Got to stick tight to me," Flea said. "There"s sinking sands here, and clay sucks you down, if you step in the wrong place. Stick tight."
Orem stayed right behind him, imitating as best he could the intricate path that Flea followed among the great-rooted trees and the cattail stands. After what felt like a mile through the meaningless maze, Flea abruptly stopped. Orem jostled him.
"Stand back," said Flea. "You never know what the snake"s going to do."
Flea picked up a stick with a short fork at the end-it looked as if it had been cut that way. He dug with it, sc.r.a.ping dirt away from a board hidden in the ground. Then he pried under the edge of the board. A high whining sound came from the hole. Orem flinched involuntarily. Not a child in Burland didn"t know that the whine of a keener meant death if you didn"t get away. They lived only in places like this, where the country couldn"t decide whether it was lake or land. It was as good a reason to stay away from swamps as any.
Flea laughed, but not at Orem. "Three days, and he didn"t suffocate. Now that"s luck, that"s luck!"
Orem watched with fascination as Flea inched the board open, always with the stick. When a keener moved, it moved like a bird, quick and invisible until it stopped again. And there it was, a flash of green skittering over the ground, straight toward the nearest standing water. It got no farther than a few feet away, though, and then it lay wriggling, neck neatly pinned under Flea"s stick.
"Can I trust you with my life?" Flea asked.
"Today."
"Then hold this stick and don"t let up the pressure."
"No."
"Once this keener hits water and drinks, it"ll follow us out of the swamp, you know that."
"Tale to frighten children."
"Tell it to the dead children in Swamptown."
Orem walked over and took the stick. At the faint change in pressure the keener let out a high wail, but Orem held firm. Flea laughed nervously. "That"s right, that"s right, hold her tight, they say she"s just like a woman, lots of music and death when she bites." Orem knew that Flea was just talking to hear the sound of his own voice. The snake began flapping its whole body from the stick down, slapping out with the tail. Flea showed no sign of paying attention to that that-he reached out his hand and pinched the keener tightly right behind where the stick had it, then pulled slowly backward until the head was drawn tight up against the stick. The keener made a choking sound, but Flea was humming. Now he dared reach right up behind the jaw; he took a tight, tight grip. "Not yet," he whispered. The snake wailed. Flea drew his left hand down the snake"s writhing body until he had hold of the tip of the tail as well. "Now let go."
Orem waited another second, afraid.
"Let go, you want to strangle it?"
He let go. Immediately the snake writhed violently in terrible shudders and spasms; Flea held on. The snake whined, the snake cried out, for all the world as if its child had died. Flea giggled in relief. "Tricky, that. Tricky, tricky. If you don"t hold the tail it flips you in the eye, you know, and you drop it and it gets you. Now come on. The pit"s a ways on."
Orem had hoped that catching the snake would be bravery enough for one day. He would gladly have left Flea then, but he didn"t know the way out of the Swamp.
The snake pit was not deep-there could be no deep pits in the Swamp, for the water would seep into any cavity. They had only been there a few moments when other boys began arriving, each holding a keener by the neck.
"Flea!" called several, and "Buzzer!" Flea thrust his keener"s head toward them playfully. A few of them eyed Orem.
"Scant," said Flea, by way of introduction. "He"s a p.i.s.ser, but he"ll do."
One by one the boys came to the edge of the pit and cast in the snakes. Each keener immediately rushed to the water and drank. Then they began trying to slither out, toward the boys. Each snake that came close to the edge was flipped back with a forked stick. The sound of a funeral filled the clearing as the keeners wailed and whined.
"You, Scant," said a boy. "You got no stick, you do the rats."
Rats? Flea was quick to fill in what Orem didn"t know. "Off to your right, there, in the castle."