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of that, but I
couldn't remember accomplishing it. There had been too much of Chosa Dei
clamoring at my soul. "Well, good," I said finally. "It'll help us get ahead a
little, if the simoom has set them back."
"Besides, had Abbu left us his horse, it would have made him a fool."
That caught my attention. "You think Abbu Bensir could never be a fool?"
Del assessed me a moment. Her face was masked, but something--was it
amusement?--lurked in her eyes. "I suppose he could be," she said finally,
with careful solemnity. "You and he are much alike."
"Now, bascha--"
She expressed overly elaborate surprise. "But you are. He is older, of
course--though how much I
couldn't say--" Hoolies, she was amused! "--and he is undoubtedly wiser,
because of experience... but there are remarkable similarities." She caught up
her hair and began to divide it into three sections. "But probably only
because you were trained by the same shodo."
"I'm not anything like Abbu! You heard what he said: 'Me work for a
woman?'--as if it might contaminate him." I glared at her wide-eyed
expression. "He'd like nothing better than to get you into bed, because that's
all he thinks you're good for. Like most Southroners."
Del continued braiding. "Like you were, once."
I scowled. "I'm still a Southroner. Just because I went traipsing off across
the border to help you out ..." I frowned at my knee. "Maybe there are some
things different about me now, thanks to you, but I'm still a Southroner. What
else would I be?"
Del's tone was soft as she tied off her braid. "You don't know, remember? The
Salset never told you."
Vigorously, I knotted the wrapping on my knee. Changing the subject. "Our best
bet is to go on to Quumi and buy another horse. Then we can head on down to
Julah."
"Julah! But Abbu just said--"
"Abbu doesn't know what I know." I moved off my blanket, began to roll it up.
"Nobody knows what we--what --know."
I
"We?" Del rose, resettling harness straps. "If you mean me, enlighten me ... I
don't know what you're talking about."
The "we" hadn't meant Del. But I couldn't tell her that.
"Let's get going," I said. "We're burning daylight again."
Seventeen
"It isn't much, is it?" Del rode double behind me, which was hot in the warmth
of the day. "When you said a trade settlement, I thought you meant something
significant."
"It used to be." I aimed the stud toward the lath gate attached precariously
to the shattered adobe wall. "Quumi was once one of the largest settlements in
the South, bursting at the seams with caravans and merchants. But the Punja
came along and swallowed it, and the caravans began going another way. Soon
most of the merchants left. Quumi never recovered."
"But this isn't the Punja."
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"Close enough." I waved a hand in a southerly direction. "Half a day that way.
Anyway, everyone got so used to the alternate route that Quumi was mostly
forgotten. It's never been what it was."
It never would be, either. What once had been a thriving settlement was now a
shadow. Lath instead of adobe. Powdered dirt in place of brick. The narrow
streets were clogged with windblown drifts of sand, and most of the buildings
had surrendered to decades of the scouring desert wind. Quumi was rumbled
together like ancient oracle bones, spills of brickwork here and there, drifts
of powdery dust, slump-shouldered dwellings with all the edges rubbed off.
Quumi's profile was round and soft: bone-colored, sun-baked adobe chewed
through like a loaf full of weevils.
We approached from the north, paused at the broken city gate to flip the
so-called guard a copper, then rode through.
Del was horrified that we had to pay to enter. "The wall is broken," she said.
"But five paces down the way anyone can walk through... why pay to ride
through a dilapidated gate?"
"Because you just do." I thought it answer enough. Anyone who knew what Quumi
had been ignored its disrepair. It was a game everyone played.
Through the broken gate into the city itself: the stud scuffed across scoured
hardpack, rattling pebbles, and into the labyrinth. Quumi was a warren of
tumbled buildings, but I knew my way around. I headed straight for Cantina
Row.
"It's sort of--gray," Del observed, as we passed into the sand-choked narrow
street.
"We're at the edge of the Punja."
"But even the sky is gray."
"That's dust," I told her. "Punja dust mixed with dirt. It's very fine, like
powder ... if you breathe, it blows. See?" I pointed at the powdery dust
rising from the stud's hoofprints.
"It looks like ash," she said. "Like a fire cairn gone to ash ... or a funeral
pyre."
The sun-bleached, wind-tattered awnings drooping from flimsy lattices and
framing poles above deep-cut windows and doors lent but a trace of tired color
to the overall gray-beige of the city.
They fluttered faintly in a halfhearted breeze. Sunlight striped pale walls,
making blocky, patched patterns against lopsided brickwork. With the
hand-smoothed outer coating of adobe scoured away, drifted tufts of long-dead
grass were exposed. The stud tried to grab a mouthful on the way by.
"So long as we can find a horse--and a bath--I don't care what it looks like."
"Does this place have water?"
"Yes. But we'll have to pay for it."
"We already paid at the gate."
"That was the entry toll. There's also a water toll in Quumi. It's how the
place survives."
"But--to charge for water!
What if you have no coin?"
The stud tangled a hoof in a fallen awning, stumbling and snorting. Sun-rotted
cloth tore, freeing him. I dragged his head up. "You make shift where you
can."
"It is abysmal," she declared.
"Undoubtedly," I agreed, looking ahead to my favorite cantina.
Del figured it out as soon as I halted the stud. The building was much like
the others: the outer shell of the adobe egg had cracked, baring the yolk of
lopsided bricks. A bleached, patched orange-brown awning dangled from the sole
remaining pole, obscuring most of the doorway. The aroma of wine, aqivi, and
other liquors drifted into the street.
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She frowned, reining in. "What are we doing here?"
"I know the owner."
"He or she?"
"He, of course. This is the South." I waited. "Are you getting off? Or do I
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