Star of Cursrah Read online

  Reiver wore tatters of every color and cut, most stolen from laundry lines.

  Tripping down stairs, the friends came to a courtyard and public fountain overshadowed by tall date palms. Amber and Hakiim sloshed off the fishy slime. Reiver, meanwhile, unrolled his blanket bundle, then rolled his ratty kaffiyeh and thin vest inside. Bare-headed, he suggested a slave, since citizens always went covered.

  “Why are those sailors after you, Reive?” asked Amber.

  “Yeah,” added Hakiim. “What happened to going to sea? Didn’t the drudache’s druzir make you a cabin hand or cook in the caleph’s navy?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t care for it,” Reiver said as he tied knots in the cod line around his bundle, “and the proper name for the Caleph’s navy is Nallojal.”

  “You had a choice of apprenticing or not?” Amber asked.

  “Not quite,” Reiver smirked. “I’m on leave.”

  Hakiim grinned. “After only three days at sea?”

  “That equals ten years in prison, to my mind.” Reiver rolled his eyes and said, “Do you know how high ocean waves peak once you pass Primus’s Point? Did you know that even seasoned sailors lose their lunches the first three days on the Trackless Sea? Riding whitecaps like wild sea horses while sailors puke and groan in the scuppers is not my idea of a career. If you hang over the side, you’ll be snatched by a scrag or a sahuagin. Or the whole ship might be dragged under by a kraken! I’ll stay ashore, where I’ll at least die dry.”

  Amber shook her head. All three of them, she thought, were so different yet so alike. Hakiim’s family were Djens, descendants of the original servants to the genies who ruled Calimshan. His skin was dark as oiled mahogany, his teeth flashing white, and below his kaffiyeh peeked tight brown curls. Amber was ruddy-brown as a copper weather vane, her hair black, thick, and wavy. By contrast, Reiver’s hair was lank blond, his skin fair where the sun hadn’t bronzed it, and his eyes blue, which was considered lucky at the tip of the Sword Coast.

  Reiver needed all the luck he could get. Born of northern foreigners or mercenaries, or perhaps even Shaarani part-elves, and abandoned at birth, he had no real name except “Reiver,” an old-fashioned word for “thief.” The orphan lived in gutters and alleys and survived by pilfering where the Pasha’s Laws punished thievery with branding, whipping, severing a hand, or worse. As it was, the urchin ate when he could and stayed bony as a water-starved camel.

  As he talked, Reiver improved his slave disguise. He fluffed his bundle and slung it high on his shoulders, then stooped as if under a heavy burden. He lowered his eyes to avoid eye contact with “betters” and even altered his accent to a gargle, like a half-orc’s. “Rea’y? ’Et’s go.”

  Watching the ground, Reiver waddled into the marketplace. Amber and Hakiim burst out laughing, then swallowed grins and waded in behind him. They passed blacksmiths hammering latches, cooks frying pastries, seers recounting fortunes, snake charmers tootling on reed pipes, water sellers rattling brass cups, and hawkers offering dates and oysters and peppers and dolls and slave whips and more than the eye could take in. The three friends steered wide of two monks of Ilmater, fearing their curses but nodding politely.

  “So you jumped ship,” Hakiim said, grinning at his friend’s audacity. “Why do they want you back? Why send sailors and marines after one scruffy sewer rat?”

  “Hold.” Reiver dropped his bundle by a juice stall and said, “Buy your servant a drink before you’re reported to the Pasha’s slave inspectors.”

  “The Pasha doesn’t have any ‘slave inspectors.’ ” Amber said. “I should know.”

  She fished from her vest pocket a copper aanth, or “hatchling.” The juice-vendor maintained that her price was three aanths, but Amber tossed the one and refused to haggle. The day grew warm and the stall busy, so the woman slid over three mugs of guava juice.

  The three crowded under the stall’s awning for shade, sipped juice, and sucked a lime slice. Hakiim squinted across the marketplace, trying to gauge how the cheaper rug dealers fared in sales. A grin crooked his mouth.

  “Wait, now,” he said. “Since when do navy ships go out for only three days? Why bother?”

  “It started as a six-month cruise,” Reiver talked with eyes on the ground as befit his low station, “but the captain lost his compass and couldn’t navigate.”

  “They only had one compass aboard the whole ship?” Amber asked. She rubbed her nose, for hundreds of feet shuffled up red dust. The spring rains were late this year. “Foolish to put to sea that unprepared.”

  “Oh, the navigator and steersmen had a big brass compass that swings on gimbals—a binnacle they call it—and a tall hourglass to steer by, but someone pried the binnacle out of its frame and threw it overboard during the night.”

  “Someone?” Both friends scoffed.

  “You don’t suspect me, do you?” Reiver asked, clutching his freckled forehead in mock horror. Something golden snaked out of a rent in his shirt and plopped on a cobblestone. Amber scooted and grabbed it before Reiver could.

  “My, my,” Amber said, bobbing a compass with a gold case and jeweled arrow. “Only three days at sea and here’s booty any pirate would admire.”

  “Gimme.” Quick as a cobra, Reiver snatched the compass away from her and secreted it in his shirt. He sniffed haughtily and said, “This belongs to our captain, if you don’t mind. He must’ve dropped it down my shirt when he was screaming at me.”

  “Why was he screaming at you?” Hakiim chuckled.

  “He didn’t like the way I folded his bunk. The blankets kept coming up short. Tongue of Talos, the man was a slob! He could lose his eyeteeth eating oysters.”

  Reiver called the god of storms “Talos” and not the local “Bhaelros,” another sign of northern ancestry. Too, his accent was tinged by Alzhedo, the antiquated, fluting language of the royal court. Drilled at school, Amber and Hakiim could barely half-sing a few phrases. Reiver had picked up the high-born language in the lowest streets.

  “Maybe he screamed because you look like a ragpicker and not a cabin steward,” Hakiim offered, waggling a finger at his friend’s scarecrow clothes.

  “Oh, I have a proper uniform. They gave it to me but deducted the cost of it from my wages.” Refreshment done, Reiver hoisted his bundle and squeezed down an alley for the waterfront. His friends trailed in single file. “But I reckoned that to go ashore,” he continued, “I should dress like a townsman. Of course, I packed in a hurry and may’ve grabbed the captain’s uniform instead of my own.”

  “I hope they don’t catch you,” Amber said seriously, shaking her head. “No one’s been publicly boiled in oil for a month, and some hardnoses think it’s time.”

  “In the Land of the Pashas, justice weighs heaviest on the innocent, and no one’s more innocent than us independent traders and small businessmen.” Reiver threaded rubbish and ship’s supplies stacked between warehouses. Half-orc laborers dozed in the shade. Peeking around a corner, Reiver studied the stone-laid wharves sparkling in the bright sunshine. “Still, it might be best to holiday elsewhere, somewhere not fronting on water.”

  “How about the desert?” Hakiim joked. “You don’t even find water on your tongue there.”

  “Good idea!” Reiver agreed and saluted with a bony hand. “Let’s borrow a boat, sail up the Agis, and see the desert. I know how to sail now.”

  “Who’s got a boat?” Hakiim waved at Memnon’s packed harbor, where masts of all sizes sprouted like naked trees in a forest. “Not me, or Amber’s family either.”

  “There are so many, one little boat certainly won’t be missed,” the young thief suggested, then set off with his long-legged stride. “Let’s borrow … that one.”

  “But that’s—” Amber began. “Reiver!”

  “Catch him!” Hakiim hissed. “He’s being crazy again.”

  Reiver walked toward a trio of sailors guarding a gig, a small upturned sailboat with three banks of oars. Painted pink with yellow stripes, it was
obviously one of the caleph’s boats. In fact, the companions realized, it was the captain’s gig from the ship Reiver had just deserted.

  The three sailors lolled against bollards and watched girls, so Amber caught their attention. Head down, Reiver mumbled, “The cap’in order’d me ab’rd fetch his bes un’form.” The bundle slid off his shoulder as if he was about to drop it.

  Pulling his eyes off Amber’s frown, the sailor drawled, “Orders are—Hey! You’re the scoundrel we were—”

  “That’s me!” Reiver piped cheerfully and slung his bundle. Before the sailor could hop off the bollard, the bundle bowled him off the wharf. A spectacular splash spouted water over the dock.

  A second sailor clamped Amber’s wrist. “Here, dolly!” he said. “You stay still—”

  “Let go,” Amber growled, her eyes dark and dangerous.

  “You’ll bide!” the sailor retorted. “The captain’ll—”

  Amber had been manhandled enough today. The sailor grunted with surprise as the young woman nimbly cocked her wrist against his thumb to break his grip. Cursing, the sailor grabbed her vest—and never saw what hit him.

  Stepping back for room, Amber snapped her left arm. Out of her blousy sleeve flicked a short club made of teak. A leather thong snagged it to her wrist. She slung hard, and the cudgel spanked off the sailor’s head with a thud like a boat bumping a dock. Stunned, the man staggered. Amber swept her foot behind his knee, and he flopped on his back.

  Reiver vaulted and slid halfway down the ladder to the gig. The third sailor cursed and grabbed while Reiver paused, grinning. His smile prompted Hakiim to boost the sailor’s butt with both hands. Howling, the sailor tumbled tail-over-teacup and vanished into the bay with a splash.

  “Come on!” Laughing, Reiver flipped off painters fore and aft. The tide immediately tugged the boat from the dock. Hakiim slid down the ladder and thumped in the bottom.

  “Wait for me,” chirped Amber. Hopping to the ladder, she hollered, “Catch!”

  Hakiim and Reiver threw up their arms as Amber leaped the gap of green water and sprawled into them. The boat rocked crazily, in danger of capsizing, then settled. Untangling arms and legs, the laughing trio scrambled onto seats and clumsily hoisted the lateen sail.

  “Anchors ahoy! Hoist the battens! Reef the top hatches and splice the sprit sail yard! Whoops!” Bellowing in imitation of a sailing master, Reiver narrowly missed ramming an incoming fishing smack. The friends laughed so hard they held their sides.

  Yanking lines, shoving at the boom, and slapping the water with oars, they gradually eased the gig deep into the forest of masts.

  Alone, Amber stepped onto a stone bench, climbed a eucalyptus tree, hopped down to a wall, and jumped onto the elevated walkway spanning a cemetery—her favorite shortcut home. Smiling at the thought of adventure, she steered the twists and turns of the wall-maze between markhouts, commoners’ tombs, and the filigreed khamarkhas of the rich. Hungry cats vaulted to the walkway only to be bowled off by others, perpetually squabbling.

  “Sorry,” Amber told them, “no handouts today.”

  The cemetery ended behind a temple dedicated to Umberlee, the great Bitch Queen of the sea, who’d once flooded Memnon and half of Calimshan to inspire greater devotion. Umberlee’s temple sparkled as workers ceaselessly polished the brilliant tiles.

  Crossing the Plaza of Divine Truth, sliding between apartment buildings and tripping across the Street of Old Night, Amber paused before skittering through the portal of her family compound. On tiptoes, Amber climbed the back stairs, hoping her servants napped in the afternoon heat.

  Slipping into her room, Amber flung open the doors of a tall lindenwood armoire. While the room was itself spartan, with whitewashed walls and black shutters and simple inlaid furniture, hanging tapestries displayed riotous and opulent scenes. The bed was heaped with bolsters and quilts of vibrant colors, and scatter rugs glowed like fiery coals. Arrow slits between the windows spoke of earlier, more violent times.

  Kicking off her boots and shucking her filthy clothes, Amber plucked out linen drawers, a fresh work shirt, and whipcord riding breeches. She glimpsed her naked frame in a tall silvered mirror and danced a half turn to check her progress. At eighteen, her breasts were small but round and upthrust, her waist nipped nicely, but her thighs and rump looked beamy as a milk cow’s. Amber’s figure was another local product of the Sword Coast, she sighed, but it could be worse. She was a compact and dusky Mulhorandi Tethan, a mongrel breed so old it was almost pure-blood, that harkened back to the legendary First Trader, who gained his color by touching first gold, then silver, then copper. Her narrow face, proud nose, and glorious black hair thick as a mare’s tail, bespoke far-off ancestors from Zakhara who’d frolicked with pirates of the Shining Sea, or so said the family legend.

  Typically argumentative, Amber’s ancient relatives had splintered from the Scimitar of Fire—a pirate band—possibly over a division of loot or possibly after offending Bhaelros, the demented and destructive bringer of storms and shipwreck. For whatever reason, they quit the ocean and stepped ashore in 1235, just in time to meet the Year of the Black Horde. Under Many-Greats-Aunt Kidila the Kite, the pirate clan had helped storm a city of Tethyr and carry off both treasure and noble folk, many of whom also became Amber’s ancestors. The pirates had also, accidentally, rescued a cousin of the caleph from rampaging orcs. Playing on the caleph’s generosity, and avoiding Bhaelros’s cold breath, the ex-pirates turned to piracy ashore.

  Into this tumultuous history had stepped a great-grandmother who was a Kahmir, one of four powerful families that ruled Calimshan and a criminal underground for centuries. Such longevity, even in illegal trade, brought respectability in rough-and-tumble Calimshan, so Amber’s family was elevated to not-quite ynama-likkars, the titled landowners of the city’s skirts.

  This explained why Amber yr Nureh el Kahmir, to use her full name, could don a crimson kaffiyeh and sash with a bold yellow stripe, as decreed by a grateful caleph. She hurried now to sling on another leather vest, stuffing its deep pockets with a comb and mirror, tin of lip ointment, handkerchief, calfskin gloves, and other traveling trinkets.

  “Aha!” burst a voice from the door. “There you are.”

  “Opp!” A comb flew in the air as Amber jumped. “Mother, you’ll give me a heart attack.”

  “I’ll give you more than that. Where do you think you’re going?” Amber’s mother asked. She folded her arms like a queen, giving Amber an eerie preview of herself in middle age, since daughter resembled mother. Age had piled on a webwork of wrinkles, sagging breasts, and even wider hips from birthing a batch of brats, all features that made Amber resolve to never marry nor have children.

  Too, Mother’s voice got shriller year by year. “Your father hunted for you all morning, and his language was something awful. Now I find you dressing like a tramp in the middle of the day—”

  “I’m going out,” Amber interrupted. “Whisht!” Her command word sparked an oil lamp over her tall mirror. Daintily she wound her kaffiyeh over her hair. Her voice turned prim, a formality for their eternal arguments. “I’m embarking with friends on a holiday—”

  “You are not! You’ve work to do, and I won’t have you gamboling through the streets like some painted houri with a common rug merchant’s son and a beggar. Our family has a reputation to uphold, and you will learn to comport yourself like a rafayam, an ‘exalted one,’ not some fishmonger’s daughter.”

  Amber bit her tongue. This argument was so old it creaked. She flung open a carved sandalwood chest and withdrew a camel hide rucksack and rabbit-felt traveling cloak charmed to repel rain. She stuffed in a spare pair of horsehide sandals, silk socks clocked with red-eyed tigers, and a fat purse jingling with silver “worms” and electrum “wings,” her spending money. After a moment’s hesitation, she jammed a dog-eared Tales of Terror atop it all. Slinging her rucksack over her shoulder, she strode for the door.

  “You can’t imagine,” her mother r
attled on, “or else don’t care how the neighbors’ tongues clack, but I’m sick and tired of hearing Sarefa Zahrah maligning my tomboy daughter—are you listening? Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back in a week, maybe,” Amber answered, slipping out the door. She marched down the cool, windowed corridor, swinging her rump sassily to further aggravate her mother, who scampered after in soft slippers.

  “Amber! You can’t go gallivanting around wherever and whenever you wish. You have duties! Obligations! Yuzas Iamar’s cousin is coming on a caravan, and her son is said to be comely and charming—”

  Amber stopped so fast her mother skittered past and had to circle. The young woman announced, “I’m not meeting any snotty yuzas’s sister’s cousin’s son. I’m not getting married, nor settling down, and I don’t want to learn the family business, so I see no need to loll here plucking my eyebrows—”

  “Won’t learn the family business?” Her mother’s mouth fell open. “You ungrateful harakh! You rebel! Six generations now we’ve traded in—”

  “Slaves! I know,” Amber shouted, whirled, and pointed across the courtyard.

  The family compound, called a khanduq, had begun life as an ancient frontier caravanserai along the northern coast road to Myratma. Solid as a fort, it boasted walls of mud brick and stone eight feet thick, a triply defended portcullis, a high archway, and four minarets at each corner. Former soldiers’ barracks had been converted into slave pens without roofs that could be watched from a sheltered wallwalk. Even now, Amber saw through an open iron door her brothers and a sister wrestling a slave to the ground to sear her thigh with a cherry-red branding iron. The slave’s shriek echoed off the walls and made a horse kick in the stable.

  “There,” Amber spat. “A proud family tradition! Well, I’ve tried it. I’ve wrestled slaves, drugged them, tattooed them, whipped them into submission, yoked them for market—and decided that I don’t like it!”