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The Hunt

Written by Shauna Roberts

Hamadar the merchant crouched against the doorpost of the Two Roosters, twisting the beaded fringe on his sash as he scanned the tavern’s customers. The inn’s missing roof tiles, mold-mottled paint, and decided cant toward the river had promised a seedy clientele, and it did not disappoint. These idlers and swindlers were well suited to his purposes.

He surveyed the room again more slowly. His eyes skipped past the woman in a jeweled Domeni hair circlet, then snapped back. Something about her was familiar. Of course! His legs wobbled with relief. Banwala be praised! She was the perfect choice to extricate him from his predicament.

He sailed grandly across the taproom to make the proper impression, his belly leaving a wake of spilled ale and curses behind him. The Domeni woman, holding a steaming mug, watched him.

Hamadar bowed. “Madam, please pardon the intrusion. I am Hamadar. I buy and sell fine goods from planets near and far, all tailored to the most discerning tastes,” he began. “May I join you for a moment?”

Her tattooed hand gestured toward the stool opposite her.

Hamadar sat, then reached inside his jacket and withdrew a bulgy ball of black velvet. He placed it on the table and with a flourish unrolled it with his ruby-ringed left hand. The velvet opened into a long, narrow rectangle dotted with knobby blue spheroids.

The woman glanced at the remarkable pearls, then looked at Hamadar. Her expressionless demeanor in the face of such wealth surprised him. A drip of sweat wriggled through his moustache, and he resisted the urge to wipe his face. He rewrapped the pearls before anyone else could notice them.

“Madam, I offer you a business proposition. These pearls must be on Mala Than two weeks from today. They are to decorate the queen’s ball gown. I had planned to deliver them myself, but alas”—he gave a well-rehearsed shrug—“business detains me in port. I offer you the chance to earn a fine commission by delivering the pearls. The Bold Falcon will leave in two days, and its first stop is Mala Than. From there, you could travel wherever you wished.”

“Rimifar Station may be the most primitive port for lightyears, but it does have a courier service. I saw it in the Merchant’s Quarter this morning,” the woman said. “Yet you are trying to hire a stranger in a squalid tavern. There is more to your story, sir, than you let on.”

“Ah, madam, you have the Domeni fine instinct for business. There is the small matter that the documentation for the pearls has been, er, lost. Mala Than’s customs officials are quite strict about the importation of gems. As a Domeni, you would of course be subject to only minimal questioning.”

The woman leaned toward him.

“And the commission?” she asked.

“Twenty maldi now, eighty maldi from the queen’s chamberlain when you deliver.”

The woman sniffed. “And why would I carry obviously stolen goods all the way to Mala Than, a most boring place if ever I saw one, for a measly hundred maldi?”

Hamadar smiled and played his trump card. “I know who you are. I saw your picture on the vids in the market square. You murdered both your husbands and are being sought on every planet, moon, and space station on the flight lines.” I have her now, Hamadar thought smugly.

“Aren’t you afraid that, being a double murderess and thus perhaps not the most trustworthy person, I might keep the pearls for myself?”

Hamadar was nonplussed by her bantering tone. He had the upper hand, yet she seemed to be toying with him. “Absconding would be quite—shall we say—unwise,” he said. “I’ll have an agent following you to ensure you follow instructions.” In fact, he wouldn’t. His sole concern was freeing himself of the pearls. He’d been a fool to agree to fence them for the now-transmuted Jarim; his time would have been better spent finalizing the lucrative and apparently legal deal he’d been offered by a potential client on the Bold Falcon.

“And if I decline?” the woman asked.

Hamadar put his face into an expression of regret. “Then I fear I must report your presence to the portreeve patrolling the alley outside.”

“One hundred maldi now and another hundred on delivery.”

Hamadar cringed. But he had to get rid of the pearls, and every moment he tarried to bargain increased his danger. “Madam, I carry little cash when I’m in Portside. Shall we say twenty maldi and my buckle? It’s worth at least ninety maldi.” Hamadar undid his sash to remove the buckle, then knotted the fabric. The buckle truly was worth ninety maldi, but was too out of style for a man of his refinement. He needed to replace it anyway.

The woman examined the buckle, then said, “I accept your offer.” She covered his big hand with her little ones. “Do not worry—your pearls are in good hands.”

Hamadar was surprised at her lack of anger, but a soft woman’s hand was a soft woman’s hand. He dared give one a little stroke as he set the velvet case before her and felt a twinge of regret for the trouble he was transferring to her. Then he reached into his pouch and pulled out four five-maldi coins and set them on top, daring to brush her hand again.

“Good journey,” the merchant said. He took a quick glance around, then hastened toward the door. A movement in the shadows sent his heart racing, but a second look revealed only a Domeni man lounging against the wall.

Outside, Hamadar held his pomander to his nose and scurried down the wide road along the river, dodging fruit and seed bun vendors, maunders with burned-away faces or missing limbs, and filthy urchins playing with chicken bones salvaged from trashpits. Relieved of the accursed bundle, he nonetheless glanced behind him repeatedly and kept his hand on his purse. He relaxed only when he left the paved road for a dirt alley that offered a quieter and safer route back to the Merchants’ Quarter.

He always felt uneasy in Portside, the roughest quarter of the settlement that hugged the west and south edges of Rimifar Station. Many of Portside’s denizens had been thrown off ships because of insubordination or an incapacitating injury; others had lost their posts simply because a cargo had brought less than expected and the shippers could not keep a full staff on. Trapped on Rimifar, the ones with scruples often died. Some survivors took up new trades, but most scraped by through thievery and black-market trading. Hamadar clutched his purse more tightly and stole a quick look back.

With relief, he saw the alley was deserted. But he felt strangely edgy. He took another look, longer this time. Something flickered in the periphery of his vision. He patted his purse again and his ring—and gave a cry. The ruby was gone! The shadow behind him forgotten, Hamadar began turning in circles, kicking at papers and old rags, looking for the ring that surely must have just dropped off.

A sudden coldness in his back startled him. Tendrils of heat shot through his chest and clawed a groan from his throat. Hamadar fell, blood splattering the dust like raindrops.

****

The two Domeni slammed the door to their austere, but clean, room at the inn and collapsed into giggles. In the light from the large casement window, the “man” was revealed to be a boy on the verge of adulthood, and the woman’s face had an unnatural rigidity.

“Trilia, don’t laugh! That mask is expensive,” the boy said.

“Lateron, you’ve got to get it off me,” Trilia complained. “It itches horribly.” She plunked down on a bench at the battered wood table. Customs stamps and port stickers revealed it had been constructed from wood from discarded packing crates.

The boy took a large silk square from his duffel and spread it over the table, then bunched the edges up to create a bulwark. Lateron then retrieved a bottle and a handkerchief from his bag. He poured a liquid into a mug. “Cousin, lean over the table and close your eyes,” he directed. He gently but meticulously wiped her face top to bottom with the liquid. As he worked, tiny flakes of iridescence drifted down onto the fabric.

“The vinegar smells awful,” Trilia said.

“And it will taste awful if you don’t keep your mouth shut.” Trilia clamped her jaws together.

After several minutes’ work, the woman wore a new face, one a good twenty years younger, and the cloth held a mound of glittering scales.

“All done.” Lateron gathered the edges of the fabric together and poured the flakes into a bottle, then stoppered it.

With a sigh, the girl squinched her face and rubbed it with vigor. Then she looked at her cousin and broke into a grin.

“You’ve got to tell me what happened!” Lateron exclaimed. “You should have seen yourself—all serious and proper like your mother. I nearly burst my toggles trying to keep from laughing. Who was that man? What did he want with you?”

Instead of answering, Trilia pulled the buckle from a skirt pocket and set it on the table. She set the ruby ring next to it and laughed at Lateron’s look of surprise and delight. Then she pulled out the velvet package and set it with the rest.

“What’s this?”

“Chocolates and games and jewelry and anything else we could ever want! Go ahead, unroll it.” Lateron’s eyes grew wide as the pearls appeared one by one. He picked a pearl up and leaned toward the window to examine it as his father had taught him. “Unusually large; distinctive color. These should bring a good price.” Then with a wicked look, he picked up two more pearls and began juggling them.

Trilia snatched them from the air. “Bonehead! What if you lost one?”

He rapped his knuckles on her head. “Bonehead yourself. You should be respectful of your elders.”

“You’re only two years older. Everyone knows girls mature faster than boys.”

“If you’re so mature, why am I the one planning our strategy for the hunt?”

“Oh, the hunt! Quick, get out the list!” Trilia said. “Let’s see how we’re doing.”

Lateron reached into the voluminous silk trousers that identified him as the son of an upperclass Domeni woman. He pulled out his pocket secretaire and pressed a button. A second later, a small sheet of paper emerged from the end. He began reading from it.

“‘Five points. Buy an apple that does not have a worm in it.’ Not yet.

“‘Five points. Snap an image of one team member kissing a maunder with only one eye.’ Five points for us. It’s a great image, too—look how your nose is wrinkled up so funny.”

“He smelled bad,” Trilia grumbled.

Lateron continued. “‘Five points. Snap an image of a clean child wearing untorn clothes.’ Not yet.

“‘Ten points. Collect a Rimifar spitting beetle at least three imfers long.’ Not yet.

“‘Ten points. Collect one bottle of each of the three beers brewed legally at Rimifar Station.’ We have two and just need a Galaxy’s Best lager.

“‘Fifteen points. Steal a prostitute’s city badge.’ Not yet.

“‘Twenty-five points. Wear a festival mask programmed to mimic Hesia Truusdaughter or Lerado Geesson and spend at least an hour in a public place with at least twenty-five people present.’ Twenty-five points for us.

“‘Twenty-five points. Steal the sign from a tavern.’ Not yet.

“‘Seventy-five points. Steal something worth at least seventy-five maldi.’ Seventy-five points, thanks to the buckle.”

“Actually, the merchant gave me the buckle. I only stole the ring,” Trilia said. Lateron raised his eyebrows, but continued.

“‘One hundred points. Steal something worth at least one hundred maldi.’ One hundred points for the ruby ring.

“‘One hundred fifty points. Steal a cloak from a member of the Guild of Transmutors.’ Not ever. That one’s impossible.

“We’ve got one hundred thirty points. And two days left before we need to be back aboard the Foul Bacon.”

“Better not let your father hear you call the Bold Falcon that,” Trilia said. Lateron tossed a pearl at her, which hit her above the eye. “Ow! Stop that!” His reply was to toss more pearls as she pulled her overskirt up over her face for protection. Neither noticed that one of his lobs fell short, and a pearl landed in the mug of vinegar.

****

The guildhall of the Guild of Transmutors, like the guildmembers themselves, presented a camouflaged face to the world, a defense against the greedy and the jealous. Outside, the guildhall appeared a small, sagging structure cobbled together from rusted and battered discarded spaceliner parts, perfectly at home between a brothel and a fenced lot where the prostitutes kept their chickens and goat. But inside, down a flight of stairs, the guildhall transformed into a vast palace, its tapestries and carpets shown to advantage by many lights fueled by one of the few working generators in the settlement. In a room lined with burnished wood—not salvaged, but first-use maple burl—the Guildmaster sat behind his massive desk and scowled at Thadow the Transmutor. “Tell me again.”

“I followed the merchant, as instructed. I transmuted the merchant, as instructed,” he repeated, taken aback by his superior’s unexpected anger. “The package is in the hands of the murderess Hesia Truusdaughter. I will retrieve it and transmute her.”

“Thadow, if you were any other transferee applying for full status here, I would strip you of your cloak, ring, and dirk and exile you from the Guild right now.”

True to his training, Thadow kept his face impassive, but his mind reeled. “Guildmaster, I don’t understand.”

“According to this,” the Guildmaster said, pointing to his contraband vid screen with its wavering images of news bulletins, “Domen officials apprehended Hesia Truusdaughter yesterday and executed her.”

“I saw her today, Guildmaster,” Thadow said quietly but with certainty.

The Guildmaster spent a minute in thought, his eyes on Thadow. “Guildmaster Hekari praised your dedication, your eidetic memory, and your keen instincts,” he finally said. “His honor is faultless, so I’ll assume—for now—he’s right about you.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Have you heard much about the Domeni since you’ve been here?”

“People say they’re ruthless in business and harsh to their workers and that they run their shipping empire with an iron hand.”

“All true. They are also a frivolous and amoral people.” The Guildmaster stroked the control on his cloak, and it seemed to lose its substance as it mimicked the color and grain of the wood around it. “We use quadchromal bead technology to move unnoticed in the pursuit of justice. But the Domeni use it as a toy. The children paint their faces with the crystals at festival time and disguise themselves as dogs or clowns or flowers. I suspect the woman you saw was wearing one of these masks. Which means any woman on Rimifar could have the package.”

Thadow shook his head. “Forgive me, Guildmaster, but I doubt it. Few in Rimifar Station could afford such a luxury. Fewer still could afford a jeweled circlet or an outfit of Domeni silks. I think we’ll find a Domeni woman has the package.”

“If so, you have but two days to figure out who and to retrieve it before their ship leaves,” the Guildmaster said. “But I think your instincts mislead you.”

“Nevertheless, I will look among the Domeni. And I will return the package to you within two days. I do not intend to let anything prevent me from passing your test and fulfilling my mission.”

“Felicitous hunting,” the Guildmaster invoked.

“Glory to the guild for aye,” Thadow responded automatically and turned to leave. But the Guildmaster gestured him back. “Remember, more than your membership in the Rimifar guild is at stake. Our reputation and honor are in your hands.”

****

Trilia opened her eyes to bright sunlight. It was early, but not too early to start. She jumped out of her bed and kicked Lateron, who was sleeping in a pile of blankets in the corner. Lateron groaned. “What time is it?”

“Time to get busy with the contest.” She quickly rolled her hair up and jammed her circlet over it.

“Cousin, we’ve surely won.”

“We can’t be sure of that! Besides, what else are we going to do in this dull, dull, dull place all day?”

“We could check out the artisans. Maybe we can find someone whose work we could represent.”

“That’s so boring,” Trilia pouted. “You sound like a grownup. Since when do you want to do things like that?”

“It’s better than playing some dumb children’s game. Besides, Mother’s natalday is coming soon, and you know how she despises anything ordinary. The silversmiths here supposedly do remarkable work.”

“We could catch an extra spitting beetle for her,” Trilia teased. Lateron made a face at her. “Please, Lateron? Your mother will hate whatever you give her. And winning the hunt means more to me than anything. I just have to beat that smug Cillara. I think I’ll have her clean my boots every day.”

Lateron relented. “All right, all right. What if we get the last bottle of beer and find a clean child, then look for a present for my mother afterward? And speaking of beer, I’m thirsty. Is any of that horrible house ale left?”

Trilia looked in the jug and nodded. She started to pour the ale into mugs. Lateron picked up a beetle that was scuttling by his feet and flicked it at her. “Hey! Stop that!” Trilia scolded. She twisted out of the way, then squealed when her elbow knocked over the mug holding last night’s vinegar wash. “Now look what you’ve done!”

The amber pool dissipated into rivulets that streamed over the table edges in tiny waterfalls. A wet pearl remained behind.

“I told you not to throw the pearls around.” Trilia picked up the pearl and examined it, then said with disappointment, “Its insides are poking out.”

“Pearls don’t have ‘insides,’” Lateron said condescendingly, coming to the table. He took the pearl from her, held it to the light, then sat with a thump. He pulled his dagger from his belt and chipped at the pearl. As ragged flakes fell, the point of a crystal emerged. Turning to Trilia with an intense look, Lateron asked, “How many pearls were there?”

“Ten. I think. Why?”

“Did you ever decide which boy you liked better, Manero or Naleri?”

Trilia blushed. “That’s none of your business.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. You can have both. You can afford quarters for as many husbands as you like. If the other pearls contain the same ‘insides,’ you are now the richest Domeni woman ever. Because this is a diamond.” And both cousins stared with awe at the sparkling stone known only from legend.

****

Thadow, disguised in the short green-and-white striped cape of a peddler, started his investigation at the tavern where Hamadar had met with the Domeni woman. The alewife claimed not to remember any such people, even after Thadow had bought two mugs of her foul ale and praised her brewing skills. The customers took their cue from the alewife. All denied having been there yesterday, although several faces matched those in Thadow’s perfect memory.

Thadow then went door to door, offering embroidered pouches, cosmetics, bone buttons, and other small luxuries for sale and listening for news of a Domeni woman. Such came so rarely to Portside that the woman’s presence should have excited gossip.

At the brothel several doors down, he was invited inside. Several women clustered around him as he pulled out silk ribbons in a rainbow of colors. “A woman as beautiful as you needs little adornment,” he said to one, feeling guilty at the lie; the poor creature was missing a front tooth, and her badly dyed hair was thinning alarmingly. “A simple blue ribbon is all you need for perfection.” The woman took the ribbon and stroked it longingly.

A woman with an air of authority walked in. “Jilla, give that back! No frivols until we pay for a new badge for Cariliana. Damned Dimmies!”

“You’ve had trouble with Dimmies, madam?” Thadow asked offhandedly.

A woman with rag-tied hair spoke up eagerly. “Cariliana and I were crossing the Copper Bridge to the Market Quarter yesterday. We needed some bread and cheese for supper, see, and it was our turn to shop. Of a sudden, four younglings smashed us against the railing. Two boys in baggy clothes, there were, and two girls with sparkly hair ornaments. One ripped Cariliana’s badge from her dress. Now she can’t work till she pays a new license fee! I put my hand over my badge and screamed and screamed. Two members of the carpenter’s guild ran to help us. The coward Dimmies ran away. But look what they did!” The woman held her arm out, and Thadow saw purple imprints of fingers.

Three streets downstream, at a small brick inn, Thadow’s inquiries again met with success. The innkeeper indignantly described how he had been awakened the night before by bangs and muffled laughs. He rushed to the window, only to see two figures in baggy pants scampering away with his sign. “And when so many here can’t read, I can’t just scribe the name on a board,” he fumed. “It was but last year I paid an artist two maldi to paint the growling dog and cowering mouse. Now I have to do it again.”

Thadow’s continued inquiries found another prostitute whose badge had been taken and a tavernkeeper whose dogs had chased away two youths trying to cut down his sign.

Thadow left off peddling and walked to aid his thoughts, eventually crossing the river to the trees and sweeter air of the Market Quarter. Not one Domeni, but several, had taken part in illegal activities in Rimifar Station. But the youngsters’ petty thievery and vandalism seemed a far cry from the organized smuggling operation of the woman he sought.

He found himself in the market square near his guildhall. The aroma of fresh buns and steamed rantha leaves made his stomach growl. Amid the cacophony, he heard Apple Ama’s call and headed for it. After his morning’s work, he’d relish a sweet, crispy apple—and Apple Ama was always a prime source of gossip.

“Sweetling! I almost didn’t know you without your cloak,” Ama said, squinting at him with her one sighted eye. “In trouble?”

“No, just in disguise,” Thadow said. He gave her a coin and took a satisfying bite out of the apple she gave him. “Some Dimmies have been causing mischief.”

“Banwala be praised, the merchants finally hired you. The reeves take reports and do nothing. Following Dimmie orders, no doubt,” Ama huffed. “Those Dimmie younglings are terrors. It’s bad enough when they strut around in their fancies and insult us. But it’s a total misery when they play their game.”

“What kind of game?”

“A collection game. They hunt things on a list. Each thing is worth a certain number of points. The team whose points sum highest wins,” Ama said. “There was a time fruitsellers all wore blue hats—this was before you came to Rimifar, Sweetling—and everyone could spot us easily. Then one year, fruitseller hats were on the list. Mine was pulled right off my head four times while the Dimmies were in port! I spent more scratch on hats than I earned. No supper for my poor younglings that week.

“The next year, fruitseller hats were on their list again. We wear plain hats now and go home hoarse from crying our wares.”

“And where are their parents?”

“Not in town. They don’t sully their feet walking through the slum they created.”

“If I wanted to find one of these hoodlums, where would I look?”

Ama shrugged her shoulders and batted spearflies away from her face. “Wherever their hunt takes them. Who knows what’s on their list this year?”

Tavern signs and prostitute city badges, I wager, Thadow thought.

An elbow jabbed his hips. “Move aside.” Startled, Thadow looked down to see two Domeni youngsters, their colorful silks and fleshed-out features a stark contrast to the utilitarian garb and leanness of the vendors and market patrons. He assessed the girl’s circlet; it was simpler than the one he had seen in the Two Roosters and glittered with glass beads instead of gems. Despite their youth, Thadow’s instincts warned him to be alert.

“Old bat, we need an apple, and it must not have any worms,” the Domeni boy demanded. “If you give us a wormy one, you’ll be sorry.” The girl tittered.

Ama pressed her lips together and rummaged slowly through her basket. She finally pulled from the bottom a discolored and shriveled apple that must have been lost in there for weeks and studied it from various angles. “This one suits you,” she said.

The boy struck her.

Thadow had his dirk to his throat in an instant.

Something pressed against his side. He looked down; the girl held a laserspray—like all weapons but blades, illegal on Rimifar—to his side. “You arrogant port scum!” she spit. “I’ll scatter your guts all over the market.”

Thadow smiled. “Then you’ll have the entire membership of Guild of Transmutors after you and a price on your head so high that you’ll not be safe in the farthest spaceport. Put the ’spray down, child.”

She narrowed her eyes and kept the laserspray in place.

“Put it down!” the boy said, his voice shaking. “If he really is a transmutor, I’ll be dead before your finger barely moves.” The girl didn’t stir. “Mother will kill you if he doesn’t,” the boy said desperately. His sister lowered her arm with obvious reluctance and slid the weapon into her blouse.

“Boy, apologize to this lady and pay her for the apple,” Thadow said. The boy did so.

“I’m looking for a Domeni woman who was in Portside yesterday,” Thadow said. “Who would that be?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said, trembling. Thadow pressed the dirk slightly; a drop of blood dribbled down the boy’s throat. “Truly, I don’t. I didn’t even know that any grownups left the ship. I thought the only ones in town were those on the hunt.”

“What hunt?”

“It’s a game. We have a contest to collect things on a list—an apple without a worm, local beers, a beetle.” The boy omitted items requiring thievery, Thadow noticed. “There’s ten of us, five teams of two. The winners get to be queen and king until the next port. The losers do their chores, give them their desserts, things like that.”

Thadow turned to the girl. “What about you? Do you know which woman from your ship was in town yesterday?”

“No one was here, I know that for sure.” The girl looked at her brother with an air of superiority. “The children weren’t supposed to know, but all part-owners of Bold Falcon were meeting yesterday to plan the children’s festival. All the women were there, and some of the husbands.”

“Only ship owners have a voice in planning parties?” asked Thadow, bemused.

“They were also going to discuss tariffs and what new cargo to take on, boring stuff like that.”

Thadow lowered his dirk. “I won’t kill you today. Go.”

The boy trotted off as fast as his bulky pants let him. The girl, more mobile in her loose skirts, snatched Thadow’s peddler’s cape and pelted after her brother. “Transmutor’s cloak, one hundred fifty points!” she called back.

“Nasty brat!” Ama muttered.

“She’s in for a surprise when they sum points and she learns she has a peddler’s cape,” Thadow said. He put his hand to the elderly woman’s chin and gently turned her face toward the sun. To his relief, she had only slight swelling where the boy had struck her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Especially after seeing you put the fear of Banwala in the boy,” she said. She gave him a strange look. “Has your guild changed its rules? You threatened to kill them. But children have always been off limits.”

“Don’t worry, Ama; it was but a ruse,” Thadow said. “Still, if a transmutor’s cape is on this year’s list, they’re playing a dangerous game. A guildsman’s duty not to lose one’s cloak is equal to his duty to leave children unharmed. Forced to choose between these duties, some might prefer to retain their cloak and their honor.”

He paid Ama for another apple and started back to the guildhall. He now knew what the young Domeni were up to, but the smuggler remained a mystery. She could have met privately with Hamadar on the ship and no one would have been the wiser. Yet they met in a seedy tavern far both from the Merchants’ Quarter and the Bold Falcon at a time when the woman had obligations elsewhere. And she came in eye-catching Domeni dress disguised as a notorious criminal—not the usual way of avoiding attention while receiving stolen goods.

Thadow stopped abruptly, and a pushcart banged into him from behind. Perhaps she wasn’t receiving the stolen package at all, but had legitimate business with Hamadar. If so, Hamadar still had the package on him when he was transmuted. Where was it now?

****

As Lateron and Trilia prepared to leave their