Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(25)
Rielle glanced out of the window. “But it seems wrong to not look, though; as if I’m pretending their troubles don’t exist.”
“I understand,” Ankari assured her. “But there are a thousand thousand people in most worlds, and countless worlds out there. If you looked into every person’s mind you wouldn’t always see pain and suffering, but overall there will be a great deal of it. Most of the time you can’t do anything to help, and knowing that while still seeing everything…”
“It could drive you mad,” Baluka finished. He sounded so much older and wiser than he had previously that Rielle found herself staring at him. “No world is perfect. Some are terrible. We only trade with one of the more benevolent chiefs here in order to encourage better treatment of their serfs, but anything more would be unwelcome interference.” Baluka’s serious expression vanished. “Still, there is nearly always something to like about a place, even if a small thing. They bake amazingly good sweets here. Like bulbul. It’s a kind of a cake with a hollow inside which they fill with a thick tuk-flavoured syrup.”
Rielle couldn’t help smiling at his wistful, hungry expression. “But we’ve only just eaten an enormous meal!”
“Yes, but there’s always more room for sweets.” He looked from her to his mother, who shook her head in mock exasperation.
“You have a whole feast to get through first,” the woman reminded him.
He winced. “If only more cultures served sweet courses first,” he lamented, then he peered around Lejikh. “We’re nearly there.”
Beyond the loms’ backs, the road ascended a low hill towards a dark, horizontal band. Slowly this grew nearer and larger until it resolved into a wooden wall several times the height of even the tallest Traveller. As tall as the trees in the forest they’d arrived in, she realised.
The road led to a gap in the wall barely larger than their wagon. As they trundled through Rielle caught a glimpse of a mechanism of some sort on the inner side of the wall. Chains led up, perhaps to some kind of door suspended above the entrance.
Ahead was a fa?ade half as tall as the wall, yet high enough for three rows of mean, narrow windows. It had been painted a glossy black. The courtyard between was ringed with iron lanterns stained with rust. People were rushing about, carrying burdens in their arms or on their backs, or throwing items into carts. Clearing a space for the Travellers, she guessed, resisting the temptation to seek an answer in their minds. The overall mood the fa?ade and the atmosphere of haste produced was grim and unwelcoming, and as the wagons rolled into a circle within the courtyard a reluctance to venture outside grew within her. Then voices attracted her attention, and as she looked out of the window now facing the building she blinked in surprise and disbelief.
A stream of brightly garbed, smiling men and women were emerging, exclaiming loudly in surprise and delight. The women’s sleeves were so billowy and long their hands were lost in the folds, and they held up their skirts to stop them dragging. The men wore broad belts over long shirts that fell to their knees, then trousers so wide they might as well have been skirts. If they aren’t actually skirts, Rielle thought. Their leader, a man with plenty of grey in his hair and beard, approached with open arms.
The Travellers emerged from their wagons and gathered before the colourful locals. Following Ankari out, Rielle managed to leap down to the ground without Baluka’s assistance. She sensed his disappointment.
“Traveller Lejikh,” the grey-bearded man said, then launched into a long formal welcome that Baluka soon stopped listening to out of boredom, so Rielle only understood the first part of it.
Baluka glanced at her and smiled. I should warn you: don’t accept or give anything or you’ll get stuck in a cycle of gift-giving that you can’t end without being unforgivably rude. I mean it. Wars have started over as small a thing as a flower offered to a child. Even leaving Kezel doesn’t end it, as the exchange starts again when you come back. My grandfather had one going for over fifty cycles.
She frowned. How do you conduct business, then? Isn’t that the exchange of gifts?
Fortunately they regard trade differently. It has to involve the immediate transfer of goods, though. They must be exchanged at exactly the same time, starting and finishing together.
No keeping of accounts to be paid later? No credit?
He shook his head. If you are invited to dinner you must “take” the food. If anyone serves you it is seen as “giving”. If someone presses something into your hands don’t take hold of it. If they need to give you something they should stand there and hold it in a thoughtful way, so that you can take it off them without obligation.
It sounds very complicated.
It’s not once you get used to it. Ah, they’re done at last!
Most of the Travellers were moving forward now. A handful stayed behind. Guarding the wagons? The young mother and the more elderly of the older couples were among them, so perhaps they simply wanted rest. They had left the desert world after sundown, so this was effectively a second evening on top of the first. But I don’t feel tired, Rielle thought. I guess I did sleep for most of the day.
On the other side of the black doors of the fa?ade was a riot of colour. The walls and ceiling had been painted deep, rich shades of red, green, purple and blue, with patterns and crudely painted figures and scenes rendered in gold on top. The floor was a glossy black, but most of it was covered in thick, bright carpets. Many of these were as intricate as tapestries and she felt a frisson of delight as she realised they were all meant to look like the ground–littered with leaves and bugs and vines like in the forest, or grass and flowers and birds, and even water with little creatures swimming within.