Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I started. Hovering above me was a tall thin Policier with a bushy black moustache that constantly twitched. His eyes were small and beady, but not unkind.
"Are you finished with your purchases?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. I had the feeling he had been watching me for some time and found me amusing.
"Aye, sir, I'm finished," I said, trying to pitch my voice deeper and rougher, well aware that I had no bags of shopping.
"Folk are going to start dismantling their stalls soon, and you'll be underfoot. Although," he said while looking at me up and down, "are you looking for work?"
Hope must have been stark on my face. "Yes, please, sir," I said, trying not to look too eager.
The Policier pointed to a stall on the opposite side of the level. "Mister Illari, the spice merchant, would probably give you a coin or two if you help him. Tell him Policier Mattos sent you. He's getting up there in years and I don't see his boy around today. You strike me as a good sort and haven't nicked anything in the past hour, but I'll not have you stealing from him."
"I would do no such thing!" I said, though guilt gnawed at my stomach, keeping company with my stolen bun.
The man's moustache twitched again. "You're still speaking too posh to pass as a street rat, young 'un. You should work on that while you're out slumming the streets. Just make sure you don't speak rough to your parents at teatime."
I must have looked comically dismayed as I watched him go. Was I that obvious, even saying so few words? But I thought of Policier Mattos' voice. I could tell that he was from a working-class background; he could have worn all the silks and gems in the world and it would not have been enough to disguise that.
Mister Illari was shuffling slowly across his stall, gathering a few remaining bottles and putting them in chests that looked far too heavy for him to lift. I rubbed at my grubby face self-consciously, mindful of my fading black eye.
"Scuse me… Mister Illari?" I asked, timidly.
He turned a face so wrinkled that it looked like it had cracked and was about to shatter. "Eh?" he asked.
"Policier Mattos sent me. Said you need help packin' up." I was sure I still didn't sound like a street rat, but hopefully Mister Illari was too old to notice or care.
Mister Illari nodded. "He's a good man," he said in a surprisingly strong voice. "Usually finds some undernourished thing like you to help an old codger like me." He gave a phlegmy laugh. "The tent's rented, so we can just leave it and they'll take it down and store them until next week. Thank the Couple, because they're bloody heavy. Start with those chests there." He pointed at a cart on the other side of the square. "Put them there and then come up for the rest of it. I'll relax up here with the money box. Mattos is usually good at spotting the honest ones, but I'm old, not stupid."
I smiled. I liked him already.
Mister Illari laughed again. He only had a handful of teeth left. "Though you're such a scrawny thing, you don't look like you could lift a feather duster."
I frowned at him. "I'm stronger than I look!"
"Prove it and grab them, then, off you get." He sighed and linked his arms behind his head.
I hoisted both of the spice chests with a little difficulty and weaved my way to the staircase. I glanced over my shoulder at Mister Illari. One watery eye was open. "You
are
stronger than you look."
Shrugging as best as I could, I hurried down the stairs. The chests were awkward to carry, and I was panting when I finally reached ground level and my arms burned.
I made my way to the sturdy pony and wooden cart tied up in front of a pub called the
Bronze Cockerel
. A barmaid stuck her head out of the front of the pub while I was rummaging to put the chests in.
"Oi! Whatcha doing, lad?"
"I'm 'elpin' Mister Illari put 'is spices back." I might have been trying too hard with the accent.
She looked me up and down, judging my worth. Whatever she saw, it made her nod. "Alright, then." She returned to her clientele.
I ran up and down the stairs, carrying chests and bags and twists of spices. Their dust found a way into my lungs and I wheezed. When I finished, Master Illari tottered down the stairs with his money box, ambled up to the window of the pub and gave the barmaid a coin.
"Thanks again, love," he said.
"See you next week, Mister Illari," the girl said flatly, pocketing the coin and turning away.
Mister Illari clambered ungracefully into the cart and picked up the reins. I wondered whether it would be rude to hold out my hands for the promised coin.
"Well, don't just stand there, boy, hop on," he said.
"Pardon?"
"I'll need help unloading as well. I've got a boy back at my place, but he's not as strong as you on the best of days and he's been hurling up his guts for the last three. And just because that's not enough, it looks like rain."
I hesitated. "Come on, come on," he said, gesturing to the cart. "I don't have all day, look at the sky!"
The sky was full of bruised clouds. I clambered into the rear of the cart, hunched under the canvas covering, and sat on a sack of what smelled like ground thyme.
"All right back there?" he called.
"Yes, thank you," I responded. I sneezed.
"Pungent, I know," he said. "By now I can't smell them at all. Too old! I've been doing this so long I can still tell when the herbs are good by their color, and my boy Calum's got a good nose on him."
"How long have you been in the spice trade?"
"Nearly thirty-five years now."
More than twice as long as I had been alive. I could not wrap my head around such a concept.
"I travelled a lot in my youth. Joined the Royal Navy and saw the entire Archipelago. The travel bug bit me after that, and so I went into spices. Good money in spices. I may only sell at the town market square in Sicion, but I've had a comfortable life, and that's all anyone really needs, don't let them tell you no different."
Through a gap in the canvas, I watched him settle himself deeper into the driver's seat, wince, and sigh.
"If it was so comfortable," I asked, "why are you still working at your age?" I only realized how rude it sounded once the words were out of my mouth. "Sorry," I said belatedly.
"It's fine, my boy," Mister Illari said, laughing. "It's my own damn fault. See, I didn't realize I only wanted a comfortable life until I was in my forties. Before then, I was determined to be the richest man in Ellada. I invested in businesses that crumbled, I gambled, I hired men that swindled me. I'd be wrapped up in some big set of apartments right now if I wouldn't already be dead from boredom."
We stopped in front of a tenement of apartments that looked like all the others in Sicion – a tall building made of limestone and streaked liberally with soot. This one had a bit more filigree stonework about the edges than most, and thick double doors inset with stained glass.
Mister Illari clambered down from the cart and gave two short, loud whistle bursts. A window three floors up opened and a boy a few years younger than me popped his head out. His brown hair was unkempt.
"Back already?" he called.
"Yes, you lazy good for nothing!" Mister Illari called up at him. "Feel any better today?"
"A little," the boy returned. "I haven't been sick yet this morning!"
"If you puke just now, make sure you aim away from us and the cart! But it's nearly afternoon, Calum my boy, so I think you're on the mend! Feel like lifting chests of spices?"
"No way, old man! Looks to me like you found yourself another helper and don't need my poor starved muscles."
Mister Illari gestured in my direction. "This is… Sorry, boy, what was your name?"
"Oh. Um. Micah."
"This is Micah. I found him in the market. I think he's a runaway!" he yelled.
I winced and looked up and down the street to see how far his voice had carried. Fortunately, not a head in the crowd had turned my way. "Am I really not a convincing street boy?" I asked him.
"No, not at all. As an extra payment for helping me today, I'll give you some tips."
"So… you're not going to make me go back?"
"Nah, I'm not a busybody. Why you ran away is your own business. Why, are you valuable?" He winked.
"No, not really." My gaze fell to the pavement.
"Good. Then let's put that wretchedly thin back of yours to work and have you carry that chest of marigold up the stairs."
I half-smiled and set to work. Mister Illari and the small boy watched as I brought chests and heavy bags of spices up to their rooms. The apartments were small but comfortable, richly furnished with trappings originating from the same colonies as Mister Illari's spices. The floors were carpeted with rugs of intricate, circular patterns. Tapestries lined each wall, with panels of plants, people hunting wild game, and fantastical beasts long disappeared into legend. One of a winged horse about to trample a man with a bow and arrow caught my eye and, each time I passed, I slowed down to absorb some more of its details.
After I carried up the chests of spices, I lingered in a warm drawing room. Figurines of more mythical creatures cluttered its shelves and table space, all of them coated in a thin layer of dust. Brass-scaled monkeys, serpentine dragons, a giant octopus and a squid with long tentacles that dangled over the edges of its table, a ship perilously balanced on one raised limb. A large shelf next to the fireplace held humans blended with all kinds of animals – feathered, scaled, and furred.
A tiny figurine to the right of the shelf caught my eye. It was a smiling person carved from grey stone, its arms raised parallel to the ground. A hand had broken off. It was naked, with full, pointed breasts, a rounded stomach, and oversized male parts between the legs. I carefully picked it up and cradled it in my hands; it was crudely made and rough to the touch.
Mister Illari shuffled into the room, and Calum followed, carrying a tea tray which he set on an empty space on the table in the middle of the room.
"Where did you get this, Mister Illari, if I may ask?" I asked the merchant, holding it up to him.
Mister Illari squinted at it. "Hmm, where did I get that old thing… must be Byssia. Yes. They have excellent cardamom on that isle. I picked it up from an old man who carved them from soapstone and sold them at the market. You can keep it, if you like. I have far too much stuff cluttering these shelves."
"Thank you," I said, moved. "I haven't really come across any, um, two-gendered people in tales from here. Is it common in other places?"
He raised an eyebrow. "A young scholar of mythology, are we?"
I said nothing.
"It's popped up a few places, as I recall." He paused and thought, his eyebrows drawing together into a line. "Oh yes, I remember the story, more or less."
Calum and I sat on the sofa and poured ourselves what turned out not to be tea, but strong coffee reminiscent of gasoline. I took a sip, made a face, put in a lump of sugar, took a sip, made another face, tried it all once more, and then gave up and put the cup back on its saucer.
"It's foul stuff, innit?" Calum whispered loudly to me. I nodded and we shared a smile.
"You upstarts have unrefined palates. Try it again in twenty years and then tell me what you think, if this sack of skin and bones is still moving about. This is probably all that keeps me going now." He took a sip with obvious relish.
"The myth you mentioned, Mister Illari?" I reminded him.
"Ah, all right, all right." Mister Illari sighed. "I heard this story a long time ago, mind you.
"Long ago, before anything had been written down in Byssia, creatures of myth and legend still walked the Earth. Humans like us were far from the only intelligent creatures around. Human and sometimes Alder folk were just as likely to be half-fish, or half-serpent, or any of these other bits and bobs I have all over this room. They created weapons far deadlier than any we could hope to make now, but no one ever grew ill or frail. When they wished to die, they went to sleep and did not awaken again. They lived in houses, castles, caves, and boats of dark blue glass."
"Like the Penglass all about the city?" Calum exclaimed. "But why are there only domes and spires around the city, now, though? Where are the boats? I want a Penglass boat."
"Don't interrupt, Calum. Any that still remain are probably at the bottom of the ocean. Or maybe they never existed in the first place and are only myth. Or the Chimaera sailed into the far reaches of the world on them never to return. Who knows? But yes, they were made of Penglass. It's all over. On every island I've visited, there's always been at least one sealed-off mountain of Penglass. It's very troublesome when they almost form a mountain range across a whole island. They're so slippery they are impossible to climb. In Temne, the mountain bottlenecks the island and you have to sail out to sea to get around the blasted thing! That's why the people are so different in the north and south of that isle. They were separated for hundreds of years.
"But in Byssia," Mister Illari continued, "the human or Alder and animal mixtures were revered. The Chimaera were much stronger than full humans. They were more agile and were wickedly intelligent. Historians believe they were the ones who invented the weapons, the Penglass, and all of the other artefacts they left behind. And it was this combination that allowed most of them to rise to power, which is probably where the religious worship started. Royalty is almost always tied to divinity, you know. But none of the Chimaera were revered as much as your new pocket ornament there." He nodded at the stone sculpture in my hands.