Star of Cursrah

1

The Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

"Here he comes."

"Reiver… what's-hey!"

Amber and Hakiim jumped back as their friend dashed by. Bony elbows and knees jutted from Reiver's ragged clothes, and bare feet slapped the tar-dappled, salt-streaked planks of the wharf. Pouches on his belt flopped, and a bundle tied with cod line thumped against his back. Red-faced, short of breath, he nevertheless grinned as he passed his two friends.

"Things to do…" he said. "Meet me back here."

"Hoy, you lot," bellowed someone down the docks. "Stop that thief!"

Amber and Hakiim hopped onto a pyramid of cotton bales to see over the sailors, dockhands, and porters' mules that crowded the wharf. "He's done it again," Hakiim laughed. "Come on, let's catch him."

Laughing, Amber held the jeweled jambiya in her crimson sash and streaked after Hakiim. She flicked her kaffiyeh aside. To catch Reiver, she'd need breath to run, and the headscarf was blowing in her face.

Memnon, also called the Gateway to the Desert, the Scarlet City, and the City of Soldiers, was a jumble of contrasts. Squat buildings of brilliant glazed bricks were surmounted by tall, thin towers with domes of gold leaf. Walls were thick, gates high and solid, streets narrow and crowded, yet everywhere stretched arches and fluted pillars and stone-cut fretwork that gave an airy effect, as if the city might take wing. Every flat surface was decorated with a painting or mosaic, and every pocket that could hold dirt sprouted roses or sunflowers or honeysuckle vines coiling toward a sky of molten gold.

The city was a living tribute to its creator, the Great Pasha Memnon, a monstrous, fire-breathing genie hunter. Memnon's efreet armies had burned down forests so Shanatar's dwarves might build a city in his name, and in that city, genies were painted and etched everywhere. Efreet statues supported iron braziers where crabs boiled and peppers sizzled, oathbinder genies frowned from building-spanning mosaics overlooking the market's transactions, marids clung to high corners as gargoyle waterspouts, harim servant genies glared from doorknockers, even noble djinn swung as string puppets from the kiosks of toymakers.

Memnon was busy and crowded, but Reiver was as tall as he was skinny, and his kaffiyeh a twist of rags every color of the rainbow, so Amber and Hakiim could spot him bobbing amidst the market day crowd. Accustomed to pursuit, Reiver cut into the first cross street and dashed into the maze of the city bazaar, the Khanduq of the Coin-mother, that sprawled for five blocks and twisted upward two and three stories. Zigzagging nimbly as a goat on a mountainside, the thief cut around a rug merchant and ducked into an alley.

Hakiim gasped, "We'll never catch him now. He knows the alleys better than any cat."

"No, look," laughed Amber. "He's flying!"

Their ragged friend suddenly stumbled backward from an alley and upset a lampseller's stall. Brass oil lamps pinged and ponged as they scattered. Charging from the alley like a bull rushed a huge man with a barrel chest and arms like smoked hams. He was a professional bodyguard to judge by the family crest embroidered on his blue vest, and the brute's furious face was dappled with lip paint. Behind him fluttered the beribboned houri who'd so adorned him.

"He must've banged right into them," Hakiim hooted with laughter. "Let's see him duck this bloke!"

Reiver might have dodged the angry bodyguard, but the lampseller, an old woman surprisingly spry, thrust her malacca xane between the thief's legs. Reiver's foot rolled on a lamp and he sprawled in a tangle of pipestem arms and dirty legs. The bodyguard pounced with great hairy paws and snagged Reiver by one leg, hoisting him like a chicken. The elder hauled back her knobby cane to knock Reiver's inverted head off.

Hakiim yelled, jumped, and caught the bodyguard's brawny arm, which drooped so Reiver's head thumped on the cobblestones. Amber thrust herself between her friend and the old lampseller's cane.

Baggy trousers and embroidered vest whipping, Amber blocked the old woman's cane. "Grandmother," she said breathlessly, "spare him, please!"

"You hussy!" The woman's crooked hand jabbed at Amber's face and she said, "Ras'lmal"

Amber saw a magic flash, like a tiny sun, explode in midair, and the world turned blue-black. "My eyes!" she cried.

Blinded, Amber rubbed her eyes frantically-a mistake, for she heard the cane whistle for her head. Helpless, she ducked, felt it whiff across her kaffiyeh-and smack Reiver's rump. The thief yelped.

"Amber, help!" Hakiim said as he tugged on the bodyguard's arm, still trying to shake Reiver loose.

The bodyguard planted his huge hand over Hakiim's face to shove him away, but the houri behind jabbered, "Watch out!"

As the giant turned, Hakiim saw a blur and dropped to earth. The old woman's cane whistled over Hakiim's head and smacked the giant square between the eyes. Howling, the bodyguard dropped Reiver and clutched his bloody nose. Reiver spun in midair like a cat, touched the ground, and scrambled up to run. The giant roared, the houri shrilled, the old woman cursed, and Amber rubbed her streaming eyes.

Hakiim caught his friend's sleeve and said, "Let's go!"

"I can't see!" Amber shrieked.

"Here… I'll lead you!"

Hakiim spun Amber on her heels to run and slammed her straight into a pole supporting the lampseller's awning. A cloud of dusty, sun-faded canvas flopped while slippery lamps rolled underfoot. Sprawled under billowing canvas, Amber and Hakiim crawled toward sunlight, for Amber was gradually able to see around the big blue spot in her vision. Cursing, she rammed her head free of canvas into sunlight and market noise and hissed as someone yanked her hair.

The painted houri, reeking of stale wine and cheap perfume, wrenched Amber's dark, glossy locks. "You broke Maryn's nose!" she said. "His looks are ruined…" A hand with long blue fingernails made to slap Amber.

"Get-off]" Amber shot her left arm up, then hooked down viciously. The wrestling move broke the houri's hold, though Amber lost a hank of hair. Bowling the houri backward to tumble on more spilled lamps, Amber looked for Hakiim but saw only his headscarf and sandals. The rest was obscured by flickering blue spots.

"We've lost Reiver!" Hakiim wailed.

"Never mind him," Amber carped. "We must-"

A roar like a volcano stopped her. At the top edge of her limited vision she saw the bodyguard's face charging. Lipstick smeared his chin, blood painted his mouth and teeth, and his eyes threatened murder. Amber squeaked.

A fat, wall-eyed trifin fish banged the giant's brow. Another fish, a flapping flatfish this time, whizzed over their heads. It struck the giant's chest and hung a moment before flopping to the ground. Amber wondered if this was some Calishite miracle, like the rains of frogs and blood she'd read about in Mulak's Tales to Be Remembered.

Hakiim knew better and screamed, "Eeiver!"

Vision clearing, Amber saw her bony friend teetering atop a wagon piled with baskets of wet, shiny fish. With two hands the thief snatched up fish big and small and chucked them at the giant bodyguard. Amber laughed with glee-until a bewhiskered talam smacked her ear.

"Hey," she complained, "watch it!"

"Make way," bellowed a voice commanding authority. "Make way for the Nallojal."

"Sword of Starlight!" yelped Hakiim. "We forgot the sailors."

A dozen sailors and marines shouted and shoved through the marketplace. All wore the caleph's bright pinks and yellows. Sailors wore fork-tailed fish badges pinned to their headscarves, while the marines bore fierce waxed mustaches and turban-wrapped helmets of white cork with brass bills. Urging them on was a red-faced rysal, a naval officer with a plumed turban.

"All citizens stand fast," the captain bawled as if into a gale off the Singing Rocks. "We come to arrest that thief and his cronies."

Every head in the marketplace turned, a meadow of bright headscarves and the polled heads of slaves, to see Reiver stick slimy thumbs in his ears and waggle his fingers at the navy. Laughter and cheers burst from the crowd, then applause as the young thief back flipped off the cart and hit the ground running.

Slithering through the crowd, with Amber and Hakiim hot at his heels, Reiver hopped up a side street. Abruptly he whirled into another alley. Amber pattered around the corner and blinked. High walls and miles of laundry strung overhead made the space dark after the blazing street. Still, she could see well enough to know that they had run into a dead end.

"Look at our gutter rat," Hakiim said, shoving her to keep going.

Reiver was halfway up a wall. As Amber reached his bare feet, she saw that the bricks in the rear wall of the alley were irregular, once badly patched. With toes strong and supple as fingers, Reiver scaled jutting edges and grabbed an iron balcony. Like a blond spider, he swung over the railing and smirked down at his friends. Amber, used to hard work, scrambled up the corner, though she had to kick to find the nearly invisible cracks with her soft boots.

Left below, Hakiim wailed, "I can't climb that!"

As Amber grabbed the iron fretwork, a ragged rainbow unfurled past her. Gaining the balcony, Reiver handed her a length of multicolored cloth. It was the thief’s kaffiyeh, untwined.

"Grab hold, Amber," he said, then called to the alley, "Hak, latch on!"

"It'll tear," the young woman objected.

"No, it's got cod line woven into the fabric," Reiver told her. "Old thief s trick!"

Amber seized a hank of headscarf. Despite the flimsy look, four stout fishing lines ran its length. Cloth might tear in spots, but the headscarf would easily bear a man's weight. Reiver was certainly full of surprises.

In the alley below, Hakiim wrapped folds of tattered cloth around his wrists, then grunted as Amber and Reiver yanked him off his feet. The dark youth's feet windmilled as he dangled, then kicked harder as a dozen burly sailors thundered into the alley.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Haul faster!"

Reiver almost dropped his burden for laughing, so Amber had to snag Hakiim's wrist and drag him belly-down over the railing. Never graceful, the late arrival tumbled onto his shoulder.

Below, sailors and marines milled in their war party. The puffing captain mopped his face with a linen handkerchief, his plume bobbing, and shouted, "Come down here-puffl-in the name of the Caleph!"

"In the name of Reiver, Son of No One, I send my regrets!" crowed the thief.

Amber blinked as a knife winked in Reiver's hand. Whisking the keen blade left and right, he severed taut lines strung from the walls. With a shudder like a flock of birds taking flight, scads of damp laundry flopped and fluttered onto the Caleph's Navy. Reiver's raucous laugh made them curse as they were nearly smothered.

Bundling his kaffiyeh in his hands, Reiver disappeared under an arched doorway. Amber and Hakiim trotted into dimness, then bumped smack into the thief. Rewrapping his headscarf, he warned, "Stroll. Running attracts attention." Despite the urge to get far away, Amber and Hakiim obeyed and caught their breath, then began to walk slowly alongside their friend.

Memnon's marketplace sprawled outward and upward into the second and even third stories of some buildings, mingling with apartments, shops, and cafes. Iron walkways and cool tunnels connected buildings, and spiral stairways and ramps wended up and down. Shoppers bustled and argued as the friends walked by. Reiver tossed a notched argendey to a blind beggar, who blessed him, saying," 'One is never poor who gives to charity.' "

Wending on to keep ahead of the pursuing sailors, or El Amlakkar, the drudache's police force, the three pretended to shop. Bazaar goods proved that Calimshan truly was the land of sand and silks, jewels and genies, slaves and slain rivals. The companions strolled past watermelons, parrots on perches, flowers and herbs dried and fresh, fragrant leather wallets and purses and saddles, burning samples of incense, billowing fabric, fluttering kites of paper and silk, stacked amphoras of wines, wicker cages of squawking chickens, fish strung by the gills on poles, and pastries soaked in honey and twisted into gazelle's horns and serpents and trumpets. With practiced ease, Reiver palmed an orange from a fruit stall and offered slices to his friends.

"I think we're safe." Amber's modest bosom still fluttered as she continued, "Whew! Do you do this every day, Reive?"

"Oh, no. I'm just celebrating," Reiver answered. "Today is my birthday."

"I thought you didn't know when you were born," Hakiim said, straightening his sash.

Reiver turned and grinned, teeth white in his tanned face. "Then any day could be my birthday, couldn't it?"

Hakiim chuckled, then asked Amber, "You wear fish scales in your hair?"

"Wh-what?" she stuttered. "Yuck! Ugh! Reiver, I need a fountain."

"This way."

A citizen of the streets, the thief sauntered with the ease of a pasha.

For the most part, the three were dressed identically. Hot weather and dry winds dictated an informal uniform throughout the Empire of the Shining Sea. Men and women alike wore blousy shirts, baggy trousers, and fancy vests with pockets. Wrapped around every citizen's head ran a kaffiyeh, and around his middle a bright sash. The only differences were in quality and ornamentation.

Hakiim, from a well-to-do family, wore a shirt of lime green silk, and his sandals were sturdy camel hide. His vest was not the usual embroidered felt but a hand-woven mosaic, a walking advertisement for his family's rug factory.

Amber's clothes were pilfered from her brother's closets and were made for hard and messy work-work she was currently shirking. A rough-woven shirt of bleached fustian, a plain sheep-leather vest, trousers patched at both knees, and half-boots of goat hide. Only her sleeves looked incongruous, for instead of being cuffed they hung halfway over her hands. Yet her family's pride was reflected in her sash and kaffiyeh. Both were flaming crimson with a bold yellow stripe down the center, pirate colors and royal colors, granted by the caleph's permission to Amber's ancestors.

Reiver wore tatters of every color and cut, most stolen from laundry lines.

Tripping down stairs, the friends came to a courtyard and public fountain overshadowed by tall date palms. Amber and Hakiim sloshed off the fishy slime. Reiver, meanwhile, unrolled his blanket bundle, then rolled his ratty kaffiyeh and thin vest inside. Bare-headed, he suggested a slave, since citizens always went covered.

"Why are those sailors after you, Reive?" asked Amber.

"Yeah," added Hakiim. "What happened to going to sea? Didn't the drudache's druzir make you a cabin hand or cook in the caleph's navy?"

"Yes, but I didn't care for it," Reiver said as he tied knots in the cod line around his bundle, "and the proper name for the Caleph's navy is Nallojal."

"You had^ a choice of apprenticing or not?" Amber asked.

"Not quite," Reiver smirked. "I'm on leave."

Hakiim grinned. "After only three days at sea?"

"That equals ten years in prison, to my mind." Reiver rolled his eyes and said, "Do you know how high ocean waves peak once you pass Primus's Point? Did you know that even seasoned sailors lose their lunches the first three days on the Trackless Sea? Riding whitecaps like wild sea horses while sailors puke and groan in the scuppers is not my idea of a career. If you hang over the side, you'll be snatched by a scrag or a sahuagin. Or the whole ship might be dragged under by a kraken! I'll stay ashore, where I'll at least die dry."

Amber shook her head. All three of them, she thought, were so different yet so alike. Hakiim's family were Djens, descendants of the original servants to the genies who ruled Calimshan. His skin was dark as oiled mahogany, his teeth flashing white, and below his kaffiyeh peeked tight brown curls. Amber was ruddy-brown as a copper weather vane, her hair black, thick, and wavy. By contrast, Reiver's hair was lank blond, his skin fair where the sun hadn't bronzed it, and his eyes blue, which was considered lucky at the tip of the Sword Coast.

Reiver needed all the luck he could get. Born of northern foreigners or mercenaries, or perhaps even Shaarani part-elves, and abandoned at birth, he had no real name except "Reiver," an old-fashioned word for "thief." The orphan lived in gutters and alleys and survived by pilfering where the Pasha's Laws punished thievery with branding, whipping, severing a hand, or worse. As it was, the urchin ate when he could and stayed bony as a water-starved camel.

As he talked, Reiver improved his slave disguise. He fluffed his bundle and slung it high on his shoulders, then stooped as if under a heavy burden. He lowered his eyes to avoid eye contact with "betters" and even altered his accent to a gargle, like a half-ore's. "Rea'y? 'Et's go."

Watching the ground, Reiver waddled into the marketplace. Amber and Hakiim burst out laughing, then swallowed grins and waded in behind him. They passed blacksmiths hammering latches, cooks frying pastries, seers recounting fortunes, snake charmers tootling on reed pipes, water sellers rattling brass cups, and hawkers offering dates and oysters and peppers and dolls and slave whips and more than the eye could take in. The three friends steered wide of two monks of Ilmater, fearing their curses but nodding politely.

"So you jumped ship," Hakiim said, grinning at his friend's audacity. "Why do they want you back? Why send sailors and marines after one scruffy sewer rat?"

"Hold." Reiver dropped his bundle by a juice stall and said, "Buy your servant a drink before you're reported to the Pasha's slave inspectors."

"The Pasha doesn't have any 'slave inspectors.' " Amber said. "I should know."

She fished from her vest pocket a copper aanth, or "hatchling." The juice-vendor maintained that her price was three aanths, but Amber tossed the one and refused to haggle. The day grew warm and the stall busy, so the woman slid over three mugs of guava juice.

The three crowded under the stall's awning for shade, sipped juice, and sucked a lime slice. Hakiim squinted across the marketplace, trying to gauge how the cheaper rug dealers fared in sales. A grin crooked his mouth.

"Wait, now," he said. "Since when do navy ships go out for only three days? Why bother?"

"It started as a six-month cruise," Reiver talked with eyes on the ground as befit his low station, "but the captain lost his compass and couldn't navigate."

"They only had one compass aboard the whole ship?" Amber asked. She rubbed her nose, for hundreds of feet shuffled up red dust. The spring rains were late this year. "Foolish to put to sea that unprepared."

"Oh, the navigator and steersmen had a big brass compass that swings on gimbals-a binnacle they call it- and a tall hourglass to steer by, but someone pried the binnacle out of its frame and threw it overboard during the night."

"Someone?" Both friends scoffed.

"You don't suspect me, do you?" Reiver asked, clutching his freckled forehead in mock horror. Something golden snaked out of a rent in his shirt and plopped on a cobblestone. Amber scooted and grabbed it before Reiver could.

"My, my," Amber said, bobbing a compass with a gold case and jeweled arrow. "Only three days at sea and here's booty any pirate would admire."

"Gimme." Quick as a cobra, Reiver snatched the compass away from her and secreted it in his shirt. He sniffed haughtily and said, "This belongs to our captain, if you don't mind. He must've dropped it down my shirt when he was screaming at me."

"Why was he screaming at you?" Hakiim chuckled.

"He didn't like the way I folded his bunk. The blankets kept coming up short. Tongue of Talos, the man was a slob! He could lose his eyeteeth eating oysters."

Reiver called the god of storms "Talos" and not the local "Bhaelros," another sign of northern ancestry. Too, his accent was tinged by Alzhedo, the antiquated, fluting language of the royal court. Drilled at school, Amber and Hakiim could barely half-sing a few phrases. Reiver had picked up the high-born language in the lowest streets.

"Maybe he screamed because you look like a ragpicker and not a cabin steward," Hakiim offered, waggling a finger at his friend's scarecrow clothes.

"Oh, I have a proper uniform. They gave it to me but deducted the cost of it from my wages." Refreshment done, Reiver hoisted his bundle and squeezed down an alley for the waterfront. His friends trailed in single file. "But I reckoned that to go ashore," he continued, "I should dress like a townsman. Of course, I packed in a hurry and may've grabbed the captain's uniform instead of my own."

"I hope they don't catch you," Amber said seriously, shaking her head. "No one's been publicly boiled in oil for a month, and some hardnoses think it's time."

"In the Land of the Pashas, justice weighs heaviest on the innocent, and no one's more innocent than us independent traders and small businessmen." Reiver threaded rubbish and ship's supplies stacked between warehouses. Half-ore laborers dozed in the shade. Peeking around a corner, Reiver studied the stone-laid wharves sparkling in the bright sunshine. "Still, it might be best to holiday elsewhere, somewhere not fronting on water."

"How about the desert?" Hakiim joked. "You don't even find water on your tongue there."

"Good idea!" Reiver agreed and saluted with a bony hand. "Let's borrow a boat, sail up the Agis, and see the desert. I know how to sail now."

"Who's got a boat?" Hakiim waved at Memnon's packed harbor, where masts of all sizes sprouted like naked trees in a forest. "Not me, or Amber's family either."

"There are so many, one little boat certainly won't be missed," the young thief suggested, then set off with his long-legged stride. "Let's borrow… that one."

"But that's-" Amber began. "Reiver!"

"Catch him!" Hakiim hissed. "He's being crazy again."

Reiver walked toward a trio of sailors guarding a gig, a small upturned sailboat with three banks of oars. Painted pink with yellow stripes, it was obviously one of the caleph's boats. In fact, the companions realized, it was the captain's gig from the ship Reiver had just deserted.

The three sailors lolled against bollards and watched girls, so Amber caught their attention. Head down, Reiver mumbled, "The cap'in order'd me ab'rd fetch his bes un'form."The bundle slid off his shoulder as if he was about to drop it.

Pulling his eyes off Amber's frown, the sailor drawled, "Orders are-Hey! You're the scoundrel we were-"

"That's me!" Reiver piped cheerfully and slung his bundle. Before the sailor could hop off the bollard, the bundle "bowled him off the wharf. A spectacular splash spouted water over the dock.

A second sailor clamped Amber's wrist. "Here, dolly!" he said. "You stay still-"

"Let go," Amber growled, her eyes dark and dangerous.

"You'll bide!" the sailor retorted. "The captain'll-"

Amber had been manhandled enough today. The sailor grunted with surprise as the young woman nimbly cocked her wrist against his thumb to break his grip. Cursing, the sailor grabbed her vest-and never saw what hit him.

Stepping back for room, Amber snapped her left arm. Out of her blousy sleeve flicked a short club made of teak. A leather thong snagged it to her wrist. She slung hard, and the cudgel spanked off the sailor's head with a thud like a boat bumping a dock. Stunned, the man staggered. Amber swept her foot behind his knee, and he flopped on his back.

Reiver vaulted and slid halfway down the ladder to the gig. The third sailor cursed and grabbed while Reiver paused, grinning. His smile prompted Hakiim to boost the sailor's butt with both hands. Howling, the sailor tumbled tail-over-teacup and vanished into the bay with a splash.

"Come on!" Laughing, Reiver flipped off painters fore and aft. The tide immediately tugged the boat from the dock. Hakiim slid down the ladder and thumped in the bottom.

"Wait for me," chirped Amber. Hopping to the ladder, she hollered, "Catch!"

Hakiim and Reiver threw up their arms as Amber leaped the gap of green water and sprawled into them.

The boat rocked crazily, in danger of capsizing, then settled. Untangling arms and legs, the laughing trio scrambled onto seats and clumsily hoisted the lateen sail.

"Anchors ahoy! Hoist the battens! Reef the top hatches and splice the sprit sail yard! Whoops!" Bellowing in imitation of a sailing master, Reiver narrowly missed ramming an incoming fishing smack. The friends laughed so hard they held their sides.

Yanking lines, shoving at the boom, and slapping the water with oars, they gradually eased the gig deep into the forest of masts.

Alone, Amber stepped onto a stone bench, climbed a eucalyptus tree, hopped down to a wall, and jumped onto the elevated walkway spanning a cemetery-her favorite shortcut home. Smiling at the thought of adventure, she steered the twists and turns of the wall-maze between markhouts, commoners' tombs, and the filigreed khamarkhas of the rich. Hungry cats vaulted to the walkway only to be bowled off by others, perpetually squabbling.

"Sorry," Amber told them, "no handouts today."

The cemetery ended behind a temple dedicated to Umberlee, the great Bitch Queen of the sea, who'd once flooded Memnon and half of Calimshan to inspire greater devotion. Umberlee's temple sparkled as workers ceaselessly polished the brilliant tiles.

Crossing the Plaza of Divine Truth, sliding between apartment buildings and tripping across the Street of Old Night, Amber paused before skittering through the portal of her family compound. On tiptoes, Amber climbed the back stairs, hoping her servants napped in the afternoon heat.

Slipping into her room, Amber flung open the doors of a tall lindenwood armoire. While the room was itself spartan, with whitewashed walls and black shutters and simple inlaid furniture, hanging tapestries displayed riotous and opulent scenes. The bed was heaped with bolsters and quilts of vibrant colors, and scatter rugs glowed like fiery coals. Arrow slits between the windows spoke of earlier, more violent times.

Kicking off her boots and shucking her filthy clothes, Amber plucked out linen drawers, a fresh work shirt, and whipcord riding breeches. She glimpsed her naked frame in a tall silvered mirror and danced a half turn to check her progress. At eighteen, her breasts were small but round and upthrust, her waist nipped nicely, but her thighs and rump looked beamy as a milk cow's. Amber's figure was another local product of the Sword Coast, she sighed, but it could be worse. She was a compact and dusky Mulhorandi Tethan, a mongrel breed so old it was almost pure-blood, that barkened back to the legendary First Trader, who gained his color by touching first gold, then silver, then copper. Her narrow face, proud nose, and glorious black hair thick as a mare's tail, bespoke far-off ancestors from Zakhara who'd frolicked with pirates of the Shining Sea, or so said the family legend.

Typically argumentative, Amber's ancient relatives had splintered from the Scimitar of Fire-a pirate band-possibly over a division of loot or possibly after offending Bhaelros, the demented and destructive bringer of storms and shipwreck. For whatever reason, they quit the ocean and stepped ashore in 1235, just in time to meet the Year of the Black Horde. Under Many-Greats-Aunt Kidila the Kite, the pirate clan had helped storm a city of Tethyr and carry off both treasure and noble folk, many of whom also became Amber's ancestors. The pirates had also, accidentally, rescued a cousin of the caleph from rampaging ores. Playing on the caleph's generosity, and avoiding Bhaelros's cold breath, the ex-pirates turned to piracy ashore.

Into this tumultuous history had stepped a great-grandmother who was a Kahmir, one of four powerful families that ruled Calimshan and a criminal underground for centuries. Such longevity, even in illegal trade, brought respectability in rough-and-tumble Calimshan, so Amber's family was elevated to not-quite ynama-likkars, the titled landowners of the city's skirts.

This explained why Amber yr Nureh el Kahmir, to use her full name, could don a crimson kaffiyeh and sash with a bold yellow stripe, as decreed by a grateful caleph. She hurried now to sling on another leather vest, stuffing its deep pockets with a comb and mirror, tin of lip ointment, handkerchief, calfskin gloves, and other traveling trinkets.

"Aha!" burst a voice from the door. "There you are."

"Oppl" A comb flew in the air as Amber jumped. "Mother, you'll give me a heart attack."

"I'll give you more than that. Where do you think you're going?" Amber's mother asked. She folded her arras like a queen, giving Amber an eerie preview of herself in middle age, since daughter resembled mother. Age had piled on a webwork of wrinkles, sagging breasts, and even wider hips from birthing a batch of brats, all features that made Amber resolve to never marry nor have children.

Too, Mother's voice got shriller year by year. "Your father hunted for you all morning, and his language was something awful. Now I find you dressing like a tramp in the middle of the day-"

"I'm going out," Amber interrupted. "Whishtl" Her command word sparked an oil lamp over her tall mirror. Daintily she wound her kaffiyeh over her hair. Her voice turned prim, a formality for their eternal arguments. "I'm embarking with friends on a holiday-"

"You are not! You've work to do, and I won't have you gamboling through the streets like some painted houri with a common rug merchant's son and a beggar. Our family has a reputation to uphold, and you will learn to comport yourself like a rafayam, an 'exalted one,' not some fishmonger's daughter."

Amber bit her tongue. This argument was so old it creaked. She flung open a carved sandalwood chest and withdrew a camel hide rucksack and rabbit-felt traveling cloak charmed to repel rain. She stuffed in a spare pair of horsehide sandals, silk socks clocked with red-eyed tigers, and a fat purse jingling with silver "worms" and electrum "wings," her spending money. After a moment's hesitation, she jammed a dog-eared Tales of Terror atop it all. Slinging her rucksack over her shoulder, she strode for the door.

"You can't imagine," her mother rattled on, "or else don't care how the neighbors' tongues clack, but I'm sick and tired of hearing Sarefa Zahrah maligning my tomboy daughter-are you listening? Where are you going?"

"I'll be back in a week, maybe," Amber answered, slipping out the door. She marched down the cool, windowed corridor, swinging her rump sassily to further aggravate her mother, who scampered after in soft slippers.

"Amber! You can't go gallivanting around wherever and whenever you wish. You have dutiesl Obligations! Yuzas lamar's cousin is coming on a caravan, and her son is said to be comely and charming-"

Amber stopped so fast her mother skittered past and had to circle. The young woman announced, "I'm not meeting any snotty yuzas's sister's cousin's son. I'm not getting married, nor settling down, and I don't want to learn the family business, so I see no need to loll here plucking my eyebrows-"

"Won't learn the family business?" Her mother's mouth fell open. "You ungrateful harakhl You rebel! Six generations now we've traded in-"

"Slaves! I know," Amber shouted, whirled, and pointed across the courtyard.

The family compound, called a khanduq, had begun life as an ancient frontier caravanserai along the northern coast road to Myratma. Solid as a fort, it boasted walls of mud brick and stone eight feet thick, a triply defended portcullis, a high archway, and four minarets at each corner. Former soldiers' barracks had been converted into slave pens without roofs that could be watched from a sheltered wall walk. Even now, Amber saw through an open iron door her brothers and a sister wrestling a slave to the ground to sear her thigh with a cherry-red branding iron. The slave's shriek echoed off the walls and made a horse kick in the stable.

"There," Amber spat. "A proud family tradition! Well, I've tried it. I've wrestled slaves, drugged them, tattooed them, whipped them into submission, yoked them for market-and decided that I don't like it!"

"This 'business' you despise"-Mother's tongue dripped acid-"puts food on the table and bread in your mouth, which has been running all too freely lately. Many fine families in Calimshan move cargo-"

"Slaves, mother. They're people!"

"People with bad luck, forejudged by the gods." Mother's hand waved the objection away. "See here, little princess. Without trafficking, we'd be nothing but-"

"Pirates? Bootleggers? Assassins? Housebreakers? Why can't we pursue a peaceful pastime? Why must we live like jackals, sneaking up behind people and cracking their skulls? 'Slavery walks Oppression's Road.' You may live by oppressing others, but I shan't. I plan to pursue some other career, something-something-"

"Oh, surely," Mother cut in, rolling her eyes in imitation of her daughter, "you could find work in the marketplace, patching pots or cleaning fish or applying gold leaf to chamber pots. You'd have all the money you need-"

"I don't need money, and I don't want a common trade. I want something… uplifting!"

"It's those benighted books of yours," Mother carped. "It's dangerous for a girl to read. It's loaded your empty head with stupid ideas. Your father and I should have arranged your marriage long ago, so your husband could ply a rod to teach you-"

"Any man who touches me gets his rod sliced off! And since I don't believe a wife should support her husband in every decision, I'll never be a pliable partner. Now please excuse me, Mother. I'm late for an engagement." Amber clattered down glazed stairs recklessly, too fast for her mother to keep up.

Cutting across the scorching courtyard, passing her sweating, swearing brothers and sister without a word, Amber ducked into the slave keeper's office. From a wall rack she grabbed her favorite capture noose, a tall hook of steamed ebony with a rawhide handle. The staff was mounted with rings like a fishing rod and threaded with ten feet of tough sisal rope ending in a noose. Amber had handled slaves since she was ten, so she knew grabs, blocks, arm locks, chokeholds, and other wrestling tricks. With a capture staff, she could knock a slave flat, trip him, snag his neck, or pin him before sapping him with her sleeve cudgel. Competence meant life or death around unruly slaves, and Amber could subdue almost anyone except an armed fighter.

Slipping from the shack, she debated raiding the kitchen but decided to buy rations in the marketplace. Her mother might yet rouse Amber's siblings to wrestle her into a locked minaret. It had happened before.

Whistling merrily, Amber flipped the capture noose over her shoulder and skipped for the tall, studded gates. Recognizing her, the doorway's charm automatically opened the smaller night portal, and Amber laughed as if escaping slavery herself.

"Well sail that gig all the way up the river," Amber announced to the air, "and no one will pester me there…"