City of Morore, Kingdom of Morore. Year 3125, Month of Hot Wind
The drum-shaped tower stood tall and dark against a dusky, azure sky, dominating the blocky little homes that surrounded it. Like many of the noble towers of Morore, Komani nur Vong's house was a citadel of its own, lording over much of the rest of the city like a bird of prey atop its roost.
Whisper slipped along the shadowy street as she approached the tower. Her slim form cleaved to the mud brick walls of the houses she passed. The soles of her feet were silent on worn cobbles. As a girl, she'd largely grown up fending for herself, roaming the rocky Wilds barefoot in the northeast part of the city before she'd ended up working the brothels. That had been an age past. But her toes still grasped the hard stone just as firmly.
In the last three months, so many had abandoned the Upper City. Less light illuminated the alleys. Fewer unshuttered windows looked out on the street. Only a distant torch or a faint candle here or there pushed back the evening gloom. So many had fled the suspicions of Morore's embattled King Yende.
Whisper, however, had earned royal favor. A King's Coin was looped on one of many thongs around her slender wrist. Like everything of value Whisper had, she had bargained a precious secret for it. Holding a King's Coin, she could pass beneath the high walls of the Upper City gates and take to the road anytime she pleased.
She spotted Yende's wardens atop homes nearby, their spears silhouetted by the twilight. They surveyed the streets for anyone who might try to smuggle themselves out. Anyone who might prove their disloyalty by escaping and aiding the king's enemies.
Someone like Komani nur Vong, in fact. The merchant was one of many suspected of disloyalty by the king.
But Whisper was quite certain that she needed something from Komani.
Favored or not, Whisper had always felt safest in obscurity and shadow, where light might not burn so brightly upon her true nature. If King Yende and his wardens discovered that Whisper was the spawn of a demon...
...Well, that would be the end of Whisper.
Reaching Komani's tower, she walked the pitted alley around it, taking note of where and from what angles she might be spotted upon its wall. She examined the tower's base like a skilled craftsman.
Whisper was a miner of sorts. A sapper of secrets. She pried knowledge from every nook and crevice she could find. She delighted in untold nuggets of information. She measured them, hoarded them, and when the time was right, she sold them for a dear price.
Casting a final glance at the dark buildings across the cobbled street, Whisper tied up the thick fountain of ebon curls that hung just below her shoulders with a leather thong. She hitched up her plain dress, baring lissome flesh with the brown hue of ripe tamarind. She dug fingers and toes into the fissures in the tower's umber brick, and began to climb.
Just a handful of months ago, Whisper had a collection of informants all throughout the city. People of every age and stripe, who watched, followed and listened. Her
drongos
- her little birds - were her eyes and ears. They brought her rumors that she could cut, polish and trade. She'd had a soft spot for her drongos, especially the orphaned children.
Now her drongos were scattered to the winds. Perhaps they worked for new city wardens. Perhaps they begged in the streets, or worked the millet fields. Perhaps they'd gone to the same brothels where Whisper herself had come up. She'd tried to help them. But she'd learned a hard lesson: You could not protect others if you could barely protect yourself.
Now to ply her trade, she had to get her hands dirty.
She climbed meticulously, practiced from years of burglary, working fingers and toes into the crumbling mortar. She kept her weight snug against the wall's surface, testing each foothold before she reached for another.
Whisper had already investigated most of the other Vong clansmen. It had been easy to learn about them. House servants carried their patrons' water, shopped in the markets for them, washed and hung their brightly dyed clothing out to dry. It was nothing to trade a few copper bits with a servant for gossip, to trade that gossip for
more
gossip, and to discover everything she wanted to know.
But nearly all of Komani nur Vong's servants had left his household, finding work under nobles who held more favor with the king. It was said that Komani's domineering wife stalked the markets herself now, trading precious furs for all the goods she could buy.
Whisper clung to the wall like an old lover. The bricks felt rough through the thin linen she wore, rubbing her in places that were all too sensitive to begin with.
If she looked down now, she'd see the flat roofs of the homes of carpenters, petty traders, shopowners and sandalmakers. Those who'd paid hard-earned coin for a crowded plot and a few bricks atop the mesa in the Upper City.
But Whisper didn't look down. She blew dust off her upper lip, hummed a tiresome children's song in her head, and continued to climb.
Finally, her hand groped the top of the parapet wall that encircled the tower's crown. She reached for the edge and hauled herself up and over.
She was still whip-strong. But a few years of easy living had left Whisper a bit sore. She brushed grit off of her dress. The tips of her fingers and toes were raw. She sucked on a tender thumb as she stood transfixed by the view.
To the south, east and west, the city spread under the now cobalt sky like a field of twinkling embers. Distant torches glowed like the coals of a dying fire, for as far as Whisper could see. Lamps bobbed as they floated across the Big Mongoose on ferries, flickered as they wandered over the Brassbelt bridge.
Before her life had been turned upside down, she'd had a view somewhat like this. She'd had a roof that just peered over the Upper City walls, laying all of the Lower City's secrets and stories bare before her. Back then, towers like Komani nur Vong's looked down upon her. But she'd been like a queen amongst the common folk and those who went unseen in the city.
Now, atop a spire herself, Whisper felt her springy curls brush the heavens.
It was only then that she noticed that she was not alone on the tower roof.
A heavyset man leaned against the northern parapet wall, searching the skies to the west. A candle burned in a holder beside him. Following his gaze, Whisper saw swarms of tiny black wings flapping against the deepening sky. The faint buzz and the screeches she'd mistaken for night insects took clearer shape now, as thousands of bats streamed towards the great forested valleys of the north.
Komani nur Vong was a trader in furs and skins. His merchants bought from the hunters who roamed the plains, scrubland, and the rugged hills to the north and south. He sold horn, fur, and cured skins far and wide. It was said that he even stuffed and mounted carcasses to sell to wealthy men, his skill so refined that he could bring the spark of life back to a slain beast. Komani was a man who studied beasts out of habit, even when they soared far beyond his grasp.
Whisper padded across the slate tiles of the roof.
What good fortune to find him here alone. Surely the gods, even in their somnolent dreams, smiled upon her.
As she approached Komani, she admired the swell of his calves and thighs, bare beneath a short sleeping tunic. He carried most of his weight above his waist. He was barrel-chested and broad, with what must have been a formidable belly. His bulk reminded Whisper somewhat of Miko, her enforcer and sometime-lover who'd betrayed her, just before his untimely death.
She whistled softly. Komani turned around.
He was bushy of brow and beard. His eyes shone bright and wide against the darkness of his facial hair. "By the Ancestors! Who in the hells are you?"
Whisper cocked her head. She held out her hands. The fall of her thin dress against her slender curves must have made it clear she carried no weapons. What possible threat could she be to a man his size?
"A friend," she replied.
"What sort of friend?" His eyes narrowed as he glanced about. "Are you... from Chide?"
What a felicitous place to start. The neighboring Kingdom of Chide, where the Vong Clan ruled. Truly the gods smiled upon her.
"Let's talk about Chide," Whisper said brightly.
With its spell-casting and infernal allies, Chide had launched a war on Morore. Though King Yende had beaten the Chidean thrust back, he still confined local members of Vong Clan to the Upper City. As far as Whisper knew, Komani nur Vong and his wife had done nothing to support the attack. But Yende still wanted them for potential hostages.
Komani sucked in a breath. "You can get us out of the city? Get us safely to Chide?"
He turned, nervously, looking across the street and to the east at another tower, as high as his own. A spear-carrying warden was visible there, standing sentry by torchlight.
"Don't be frightened," Whisper said, in as soothing a voice as she could. "You're just enjoying the night from your roof, watching the fruit bats fly home while you speak with one of your servants. Or your wife, perhaps. They can hardly hear us from there - nor can they make out faces in the night.
"Tell me," Whisper said, walking closer. "Is there someone in Chide who would pay to get you out? A Vong Clan relative, perhaps?"
"Who sent you?"
"Who do you think sent me?"
She was near enough now that she was certain he could see the curves and hollows of her dress, the plain evidence that there was nothing beneath the thin fabric but her.
Komani shifted slightly. He glanced towards the narrow structure behind her on the roof, where a doorway led down into the tower. Where it would be more private. But he didn't suggest going inside.
His wife would be inside.
"Alone in the shadows," she went on, mischievous eyes locking on his. "No one need know what we say... or do... here."
"You were sent by King Yende," he guessed, "to see if I am loyal."
"King Yende is a fool," Whisper said. "But he surely already knows who your foreign kin is. He did not send me."
She'd considered this, of course. Counted on it, in fact. If Yende went through the trouble of holding these people, there must be influential clansmen in Chide who would ransom them.
Her gaze dropped down to the outline of his swelling cock, just under the hem of his tunic.
Yes.
Komani desired her. Good fortune indeed.
She saw his throat roll as he swallowed. He smelled faintly of coconut oil. Less faintly, of beer.
