The directions led to a small street not far from the main square. There was a feeling of familiarity to the doors and windows on either side, but it was hard to be certain, in the darkness, that all was the same as Teldin remembered. He studied each entrance carefully, looking for a cobbler’s sign that swung over the doorway, announcing Master Trandallic’s trade.
At the fourth door, in a dark and dilapidated structure, Teldin stopped, Gomja almost walking into him. A canted iron bracket hung over the door, its chains missing the sign it once held. The door was off its hinges and propped clumsily in the entrance. The farmer gawked at the decay.
“Your cousins live here, sir?” Gomja rumbled in amazement.
“I thought so,” the farmer slowly answered as he scanned the decrepit structure. A scrap of signage on the door proclaimed the place the dwelling of a “Master Trand-” The rest of the name had long since rotted away.
“Go away, you beggars! There’s nobody there!” shrilled a voice from across the street. A shuttered window clacked open and a double-chinned woman leaned menacingly over the sill. “Trandallics left town years ago without even a word of where they were going, so just get on out of here!” Teldin stood stunned at the news. His cousins, his only hope, had vanished. Gomja took a menacing step forward only to be restrained by his companion.
“Let’s get out of here,” Teldin mumbled in dismay. He needed to find someplace quiet to rethink his plans. Grabbing the giff by the arm, the farmer dragged the alien out of the street. A flutter of cloth in a dark passage caught his eye. Stopping for an instant, Teldin darted into the alley and snatched the fabric off a line. It was a big, gray blanket, coarse in weave, but just the thing Teldin was looking for. Hurrying back onto the street, he tossed the cloth to the giff and hurried along. “Wrap yourself in that,” Teldin ordered. “I’m tired of trying to explain you.” His angry tone effectively discouraged the giff from arguing.
The pair walked for several blocks before either spoke. It was the giff who finally broke the silence. “Where to now, sir?”
Teldin paused, considering his scant options. He had been too upset to think. Everything had been staked on finding his cousins and securing their aid, but now that hope was dashed. They had left for parts unknown and he was alone-the giff barely counted-in Kalaman. The bazaar had been his next planned stop, there to get the cloak off and sell it. If nothing else, he could get a blacksmith to cut the chain. The bazaar, however, would not open until daybreak.
From the position of the moons Teldin guessed it was about two o’clock in the morning. There would be precious little open at this time. Kalaman was not a city noted for its endless entertainments. All the inns had closed their doors far earlier in the night. During the war, the waterfront always had something going, but Teldin could not imagine taking Gomja into one of those dives. He knew ftom wartime experience the type of folk who could be found drinking at this hour. “We wait for morning.”
“Where, sir?” the giff asked. A cool breeze blew toward the waterfront, kicking up scraps of garbage that littered the street.
“Anywhere we can find. All the inns are closed by now. Come on, let’s not stay here.” Teldin said dejectedly.
The two set out to nowhere in particular, crossing through the twisting streets, working their way to the north of the marketplace. Even though it was late, there were a few people on the street. Some might have been thieves or worse, but they drew away upon seeing the seven-foot, hulking shadow that followed Teldin around. Still, the farmer noticed that many mote were simply poor, sleeping under makeshift tents or huddled around fires. Some of the men he saw were crippled, missing one or both eyes, a leg, or an arm. Survivors of the war, he assumed. Like himself, few of these men saw any benefit from the return of the gods and their healers.
More disturbing were the others Teldin saw: whole families squeezed into little shanties, built in the shadows of grand houses of the city. Fitful coughs and whining cries came from these hovels. Refugees, Teldin guessed. The war had displaced so many people. Some of them had yet to return home. Others would never return, for their farms might still be in draconian hands. “This is war’s promise,” he sighed to himself. “We fought for these people, Gomja, and look what they got out of the great victory.” Right now, Teldin could not help feeling bitter. The giff looked at the farmer curiously, trying to understand the human’s attitude, but the sentiments were too foreign to the big alien. War was always a glorious endeavor in his eyes.
Feeling thoroughly desolate, Teldin chose what looked like a quiet, dry corner. “We’ll have to sleep here for the night,” he grimly announced as he scuffed the garbage away with his foot. The giff looked at their quarters and gave an unconcerned shrug.
“What then, sir?” the alien asked.
Teldin kept at the business of clearing away some of the rubbish. “Tomorrow, the market. I want to be there when it opens in the morning.”
“I hope we can get something to eat there,” opined the giff.
The morning was overcast and warm. A wet wind blew in over the sea wall, foreboding rain for the day. Indeed, the clouds made feeble efforts to that end, sprinkling fat drops haphazardly over the city. It was just enough to dampen the ground and transform the dusty cobblestones into slick grime. Teldin pulled his cloak tighter and wondered how it was that rain could be mud before it even reached the ground. It seemed as if every drop left a brownish smear on everything it hit.
Bad weather or no made little difference to the merchants in the great market plaza. They were already in their stalls and hard at work, hawking their wares. The narrow aisles were clogged with cooks carrying baskets, young parents pulling squalling children, and impoverished students hoping for a scrap of stale bread. Ramshackle structures of wood and cloth marked the offices of established businessmen while simple straw mats rolled out on the ground were all the farmers needed to display their wares. “Make way! Make way!” the poulterer’s servant shouted to the crowd as he pushed a handcart filled with plucked and gutted chickens to his master’s stall.
There was a government-imposed order to the whole place, run gleefully riot by the merchants’ entrepreneurial spirit. The supposedly straight rows of stalls thrust scattershot into the aisles as each vendor pushed his or her tables or mats farther and farther into the flow of traffic. The outer ring of the plaza was mostly food. Clustered around the street entrances were the fryers of hot breads, the boilers of dumplings, the sweet-sellers, and the soup-makers. The latter clinked spoons against bowls, trying to lure customers close enough to smell their wares, while the nearby sweet batters sizzled in hot oils. Old friends-the fishmonger from down the way, the leather cutter on the way to his stall, even rival cooks standing across from each other- traded jokes and gossip.
Finally, past the grocers, butchers, coopers, clothiers, tinkers, rug dealers, and potters, the two reached a small aisle angled at odds to those around it. ‘just ahead, that’s Steel-Seller’s Lane,” was the answer the old tea merchant gave Teldin, pointing toward the gloomy row. The way was quiet when compared to the bustling activity of the outer regions, where the food stalls lay. The booths here were sturdy little shacks with louvered doors and curtains. The long eaves of the roofs grew into awnings that covered most of the narrow street. The sun, filtered through cloths of orange and blue, pulled up small coils of steam from the barely damp cobblestones. A few pieces of worn pottery and dull bronzeware were neatly arranged on the shelves of some stalls, promising greater treasures within. The curio market was still here, Teldin was satisfied to see, but it seemed much smaller now.