Sparkers (15 page)

A
t nightfall, I plunge into the moist darkness of the city, my cloak drawn around my shoulders, my lantern held aloft. Dim lights flicker in windows here and there. Despite the thaw, the air is chilly and fills me with a cold hopelessness. It takes a monumental effort to push on to the Ikhad.

The marketplace is eerily empty. The stalls, draped with canvas for the night, loom in the dark. Two figures hover by the corner roof post next to the book stand, lanterns bobbing between them.

“Marah?” Azariah's voice is high.

“It's me,” I breathe, trembling with relief. “Tsipporah?”

She takes a step forward and squeezes my hand in greeting.

“Tsipporah, this is my friend Azariah Rashid,” I say, gesturing to where he stands awkwardly apart from us.

In a detached voice I almost don't recognize, Tsipporah says, “You didn't mention your friend was a kasir.”

My heart skips a beat. “He's all right, Tsipporah.”

“You give me your word?”

“Yes,” I say, moving to stand beside him.

“Very well,” Tsipporah says, still sounding distant. I should've told her about Azariah before. “Let's be on our way. We've far to go.”

She takes off at a surprising speed. Azariah and I stride after her.

“How was your audition?” he asks.

“Excellent.” It feels good to remember it, to remember how sure of myself I felt both while I was playing and afterward. An echo of that assurance washes over me now, and I cling to it.

The neighborhoods begin to change, the apartment buildings giving way to dilapidated tenements and shady boardinghouses. Tsipporah leads us through seedy streets where tramps snore by the gutters and the stench of liquor and horse dung floats in the humid air. Gas streetlights are scarce, and we meet only a handful of workers trudging home from the factories, a few women dragging children inside. I've never been in this part of town, and I feel like an outsider in my own city.

At some point, the cobblestones dissolve into mud that sucks at my shoes. I raise my lantern to get a better look at our surroundings and realize the dwellings have become little more than shacks. We've reached the outskirts of the city.

“Where are we going?” I murmur to Tsipporah.

“The forest,” she says.

The forest! When I was small, Father would tell me spooky stories about the forest as he tucked me into bed at night, tales of great bears and crafty panthers, of mysterious lights that lured travelers into ravines. If he only knew where I was now.

Tsipporah hurries onward, and Azariah and I creep after her as a fine rain begins to fall. The lane narrows so much that Azariah's thick wool coat brushes my shoulder. Once, he stops and twists around, holding his lantern high and peering into the darkness behind us.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I thought I heard someone,” he says, but there's nobody there. We continue after Tsipporah.

The rain intensifies, and our feet squelch at every step. My mind wanders from the untranslatable Hagramet words to worries about the cost of contraband ingredients, but every few minutes I catch myself mentally playing the Shevem—bowings, fingerings, and all.

After a while, we leave the slum and enter a wide open space. A wall of darkness rises ahead. I breathe in the scent of evergreens and wet earth as the rain descends in curtains through pines and leafless aspen trees. Tsipporah shuffles ahead into the dark, and we follow, tramping on the slippery leaves that carpet the narrow path.

Eventually, I distinguish a light ahead. Then many lights, more than there should be in these wild woods. Blinking, I step into a clearing after Azariah and stare at the sight before me. Wooden poles sunk deep into the ground support taut cloth roofs. Spruce branches scrape the sides of sodden tents, as well as more outlandish structures improvised from boards and scrap metal. People move briskly through the glade, weaving around each other in a practiced dance. And I hear music. Fiddles, keening over the thrum of hushed conversations, and drums, pounding somewhere unseen. It's practically a village. I can't believe it exists in what I thought was a desolate forest.

“What
is
this?” says Azariah in awe.

“The forest market,” says Tsipporah.

“The black market,” he says.

“Ha,” says Tsipporah. “This isn't all of it.”

I throw her a startled look. “This is where the Hagramet grammar came from.”

Tsipporah grins. “Very good, Marah.”

“But don't the police find you?” Azariah says.

“Of course not,” Tsipporah scoffs. “We're too clever. I've been coming here since I was a girl and have never once been caught. Now move along. Night won't last forever.”

We advance toward the fire crackling under a proper roof at the center of the clearing, but two men block our way. One is small and thin and looks like a Laishidi immigrant, from the jungle country south of Xana. His coarse, straight black hair gleams in the firelight. The other man is burlier, swarthy. His piercing gaze rests on me and Azariah.

“Who are they, Tsipporah?” he says.

“They're with me,” she says. “You can trust them.”

The Laishidi doesn't even twitch. “The boy's a kasir, if I'm not mistaken.”

Azariah goes rigid beside me.

“Tsipporah's word is good enough,” the burly man says with finality. His companion slides grudgingly aside, his eyes still fixed on Azariah. Tsipporah shoves us forward and winks at the men as I wonder at her influence.

While Azariah and I warm ourselves by the fire, Tsipporah flits from one acquaintance to another. Before I've even rubbed the numbness from my fingers, she returns and asks to see our ingredients list.

Azariah extracts a sheet of notebook paper from deep inside his coat. “We need a certain amount of each item, and the more the better, because we want to make as large a batch of the cure as we can . . .”

I stop listening to Azariah's nervous instructions. According to the Hagramet text, a spoonful is a sufficient dose. Much depends on the nature of the unknown ingredients, though. And on the prices. I look away when Azariah pulls out his coin purse, afraid to be associated with such wealth in a place like this.

We agree to split up so we can return to the city as soon as possible. Azariah slips Tsipporah a handful of coins, and she sets off to buy the known ingredients, leaving us to investigate the untranslated ones. I follow Azariah out into the rain, feeling uneasy without Tsipporah. The barely restrained hostility in the sea of faces around us almost makes me take Azariah's hand.

“Tsipporah said she has a friend in there who can read Hagramet,” he says, pointing to a large tent.

As we approach, I hear the sound of a violin. The music is showy, studded with flourishes, and even through the soaked cloth, the fiddler's skill is dazzling.

It takes much batting to find an entrance in the endless folds of sopping material. At last, Azariah lifts a dripping sheet of fabric, and I duck inside. The musician breaks off in the middle of a chord. Confronted by seven dirty, unfriendly faces, I fail to produce an audible greeting.

“City kids,” someone mutters in disgust.

The fiddler steps toward us, stooping under the tent cloth, his instrument and bow clutched in one fist. An oil lamp illuminates a leathery face with knobby cheekbones and a lustrous mustache.

“Who invited you in here?” he growls.

Feeling Azariah's presence behind me, I whisper, “Adam.”

“What's that?”

“Toviah Adam,” I manage to say more clearly. “You were playing his ‘Winter Caprice.'”

The fiddler's eyes widen, his menacing expression fading.

“Well, well,” he says, amused. “What have we here? A little musician?” His companions continue to scowl at me and Azariah, their distrust palpable.

“I play violin,” I say.

“Is that so?” the man says, a hard gleam in his eye. He shoves his fiddle at me, as if telling me to prove it.

I hesitate, intimidated by his aggressive manner and the suspicious stares of everyone else in the tent. Then I take the instrument. The scarred violin is a rich red-brown, its scroll carved into a lion's head. Though the Shevem is still coursing through me, my thoughts drift to “Where Wind Blows Not,” that concert piece our medsha loved so much for its words of longing. I lift the stranger's bow and draw it across his fiddle's strings.

As I play the melody, I hear a voice begin to sing along. At first, it's only the fiddler himself, but then the others join in until I'm accompanying the whole tent. They recognized the tune, and they all know the words to the folk song.

When I stop playing, their antipathy has melted away. Two wizened old ladies are smiling at me.

“You know your traditional Ashari music,” the fiddler says with approval as he takes back his violin. “Who are you anyway?”

“We're friends of Tsipporah's,” I say.

“Ah!” he says with new respect. “Why didn't you say so right away? Call me Yochanan. At your service.”

Azariah looks expectantly my way, so I scrape up my courage. “We have some words of Hagramet we need translated, sir. We heard someone here can read it . . .”

“That would be me,” he says.

“Oh!” I say, startled. “Well, could you . . . ?”

“Can you pay?” Yochanan asks. “Sorry, but I can't be handing out favors, even for Tsipporah.”

Azariah opens his purse, and I catch a glimpse of what it contains. In addition to plenty of one- and two-stone coins, he has silver falcons and gold crescents, larger denomination coins I've rarely seen.

Yochanan reaches out a callused hand for the falcon Azariah is proffering. For one heart-stopping moment, he doesn't withdraw his hand, as though the payment is insufficient. I don't have the nerve to bargain. But then he closes his fist.

“That's a fat purse, boy,” he says, his voice cooler. Azariah draws himself up, his expression haughty. I realize these are the first words anyone in the tent has addressed to him.

“Show me these Hagramet words,” Yochanan says.

Azariah hands him a damp page with the three undecipherable ingredients copied onto it. Yochanan holds the paper close to his nose, his mustache twitching as he mutters to himself.

“Strange words,” he says.

“What are they?” I ask.

Yochanan gives me a long look. It is not unfriendly, but he clearly wonders what we're up to. “First, ground cardamom. A foreign spice. Expensive, but available in the city. Might be cheaper here though. Next, black eggs—”

“What?” Azariah interjects.

“Black eggs. Aged till the yolks turn to ash and the whites to amber. Delicacy from Narr, though they made them here too, in the days of Hagram. Potent stuff.” Yochanan dips his head toward one of his companions. “Divsha sells them.”

“And the last word?” I ask.

“Ah, yes . . . Hope you're rich, because this is the tea.”

There's a solemn silence as Yochanan waits for our reaction. But I'm confused. “That's not the word for tea.”

“Not the tea you drink every day. The heavenly tea,” Yochanan says. “The tales from Hagram all tell of it. But the kingdom collapsed, folks forgot where they came from, and only a few remember the stories.”

“So . . . can we buy it?” I ask.

“Yes, but better watch out. Costs a fortune, and it's dead illegal.”

“My thanks,” Azariah says impatiently. “Can we buy black eggs now?”

“Of course. Divsha!” Yochanan nods to a silver-haired woman. “Got any on you?”

Divsha arches her back as she stands. Despite her hair, she looks young. She can't be Ashari, not with her beaky nose and wide-set eyes. Is she from Narr? I didn't think there were any Narri in Ashara. In school, they always said Narr was the most uncivilized land in the world. Judging by his expression, Azariah's heard the same thing.

Divsha thrusts one hand into her huge, shapeless coat. “How many?”

“Two,” I say.

She produces what look to me like two ordinary chicken eggs. Beginning to grasp how things work around here, Azariah unties his purse again. Divsha names her price, and he hands the coins over without discussion. We mumble our thanks and make to leave.

“Wait!” Yochanan raises the oil lamp higher. “A last word of advice, for free. There's heavenly tea in the next clearing. Find the sand-spawned woman named Basira.”

I wince at his vulgarity. To my horror, Azariah spins around and glares at Yochanan.

“The next clearing?” I say, trying to shield Azariah from view.

“Did you think all of Ashara's illegal merchandise would fit in one clearing?” Yochanan smiles. “You'll find Basira in the orange tent, but be careful. She's a strange one. Won't sell to just anyone. Be sure to pay her properly.”

“Right,” I say, anxious to leave.

“Keep up your fiddling, now,” says Yochanan. “And give Tsipporah my greetings.”

“We will.” I prod the tent cloth until a section billows outward. Azariah and I escape.

“Now what?” he says, his voice throbbing with fury.

“We buy some cardamom. Then we find Basira.”

“I can't believe that Yochanan.”

“I'm sorry he insulted you. He didn't know you were Xanite. Not that that excuses him.” I glance sideways at Azariah. “But it might help if you'd . . .”

“What?” he says through clenched teeth.

“Act a bit less like a kasir,” I say apologetically.

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“Keep your head down. And try not to sound so superior all the time.”

I hear him suck in air and brace myself for a retort, but he says, “You're right.”

Purchasing cardamom proves easy, but I'm starting to feel tired, hungry, and homesick. I don't like being so far away from Caleb. I feel as though I've traveled to another star and left my feverish brother behind.