She starts to leave but stops when Jijima says, “Are you working at the general dealer’s again?”
“The one and only.”
“He’s not paying you enough, is he?”
“He pays me well for the work I do for him.” Ilapara knows never to badmouth an employer—past, present, or prospective. No need to burn bridges that might come in handy in the future.
“I see. Well, if there’s nothing else . . .” And Jijima returns to his work, as complete a dismissal as any.
“Good day, Foreman,” she says. “Rufa.”
“Drinks later?” Rufa says as she leaves.
She suppresses a shudder. “Maybe some other time.”
BaChando, Seresa’s general dealer, was the first person to offer her a job when she arrived in Umadiland three comets ago with nothing but a sack of clothes and a cheap spear to her name.
A series of carts and wagons had driven her along seemingly endless dirt roads stretching from the Yerezi borderlands in the southeast and joining the World’s Artery just south of the stopover town. She already knew the local language, having learned it back home, but she quickly taught herself to speak exactly like a native so she could convince someone to give her a job without asking too many questions. And when BaChando hired her and she finally had the coin to spare, she taught herself to paint her face and dress like a native too.
It was supposed to be a mere disguise, but to Ilapara it became a way to remake herself in her own image, without anyone’s input on what was proper and what was not. Now her crimson Umadi veils and robes and her leather and aerosteel armor are the truest garments she could ever don, and Izumadi rolls off her tongue like she was born to it.
BaChando gladly rehired her when she fled back to Seresa after narrowly escaping Kageru with her life. The work’s a big step down from a mercenary company, and BaChando is as cold blooded as a snake, but at least the pittance he pays her keeps her fed, leaving just enough for her buck’s extortionate livery fees, a daily bath, and a bunk at the hostels in the town’s river district. All things considered, she can’t complain too much.
His store is one of those two-story buildings built along the Artery. Because of her detour to the Vuriro office, Ilapara has to meander through the meat market to get there.
She usually avoids Seresa’s meat market if she can, but she’s almost late for her morning shift, so there’s nothing else for it. Keep your head down, your eyes forward, she tells herself. Walk quickly; don’t look in the cages. Mind your own business. It’s a harsh world out there, and it’s not like you can do anything about it.
Ilapara is good at minding her own business—that’s a habit one quickly learns in Umadiland—but there’s something about the meat market that makes it hard for her not to look . . .
Like now. As she passes one of the caged wagons butting into the muddy road, she can’t help but sneak a look inside at the wraithlike Faraswa woman slumped against the iron bars—about my age, covered in layers of grime. The filthy dress clinging to her bones might have once been bright yellow; it’s a sooty brown now, brown like disease and old vomit. Her dark hair might be shoulder length, but it’s all matted to her scalp. And her tensor appendages, so spotless in her filthy prison, curling out of her temples like twin snakes of polished bronze. Ritual bed slave or muti sacrifice? Which one is worse?
Most people new to Seresa assume the meat market is named thus because of the wide selection of meats sold there—meats sourced from every corner of the Redlands and brought in enchanted frostboxes so it’s as fresh as the day it was killed.
Most people new to Seresa are wrong.
By far, the most lucrative meat sold at the meat market is the living, breathing, human kind. The Faraswa kind in particular, who are treasured as slaves and victims of muti rituals for their essence-rich blood. Those who don’t sell get hauled up the World’s Artery and displayed at every town on the way until a buyer comes along.
The girl in the caged wagon quickly looks up, as if she can sense the weight of Ilapara’s gaze, and her vivid crimson eyes choke Ilapara with the weight of the suffering they’ve seen and the suffering they have yet to see. They are devoid of hope, dead to this world.
Behind the wagon, a gray banner hangs with the Seal of an infinitely black sphere that seems to blink at her. Ilapara looks away and minds her own business.
When you’re in the trade of buying things from money-strapped travelers—anything, really, from clothes to dried foods to charmed trinkets—at a quarter of the price they are actually worth, only to make a hefty profit when you resell them in that same store, you are bound to make some people very angry, perhaps angry enough to get violent.
Ilapara’s job at the general dealer’s, put simply, is to discourage any malcontented travelers from physically expressing their grievances with BaChando. The few instances she had to use her spear when she first worked here earned her a reputation in the town, enough for her to walk into a mercenary office and not get laughed out of the room when she asked for a job.
She hasn’t had cause to put her new armor and weapon to use, though, not since BaChando rehired her two weeks ago. A good thing, of course, but sometimes she wishes the job entailed a little more risk and excitement. The riskiest thing she’s seen so far was an old woman who pelted BaChando with her sandals and stormed out barefoot. Certainly a duller job than watching the comings and goings at the gates of the Mimvura compound.
A caravan is leaving town this morning. Ilapara watches it longingly from her post at the door, wishing she could join the mercenaries escorting it. Perhaps if she traveled more of the world, if she saw what else could be in store for her out there, perhaps she would finally understand what it is she wants for herself, whether to go back home or seek a life elsewhere.
Her thoughts engross her so completely that she’s uncharacteristically startled when, like a ghost from her past, a bespectacled young man walks into the store and greets her in the Umadi tongue. She barely manages to respond before he continues inward to browse around the shelves.
She gapes at him, perplexed.
He is Yerezi. A Yerezi tribesman is here, in Seresa, here in this store.
Besides his uniquely Yerezi straw hat, she knows he’s Yerezi from his white loincloth and the bow and quiver harnessed to his back—that and his distinct beaded necklace, and the numerous leather bands wrapped like tiny snakes around his wrists, and that earring that says he’s a copperborn princeling, and his indescribable homeness, so unexpected in this place of vice it makes her ache for the peace of her motherland.
She smothers those annoying feelings before they catch fire. It’s easy: all she does is remember why she left.
Still, there’s something fundamentally wrong about seeing a Yerezi tribesman here in Seresa, in this store, walking around like it’s the most normal thing in the world. She knows there are Yerezi who brave Umadiland for trade, but they don’t usually venture beyond the tamer towns and villages of the borderlands—far from the Artery.
They certainly don’t come here.
Ilapara watches him from the door while he peruses the aisles of stuff with visible interest. He’s tall and lithe, and his skin is a few shades lighter than her own russet brown. Oblivious is the first word that pops into her mind; the boy has caught the dealer’s hawkish attention—the man’s practically leering at him from behind his counter—but the boy seems completely unaware. At one point he stops, lifts a fluffy-looking plaything off the shelves, sniffs it, grimaces, and puts it back.