Distant tales of the Dichotomy

The first rule of the city, Veyra explained, was that nobody in Sorticia would believe a word you said unless you looked like you could afford to be lied to.

“I look like I can afford it,” said Fel, with some dignity.

“You look like a boy who has been dragged behind a beetle for a week.”

“I was dragged behind a beetle for a week.”

“Yes. That is my point.”

They had come through the East Gate at the last light, in a stream of carts and caravans and shouting guards, and Fel had spent most of that time with his mouth open. The gate was a vaulted arch of white stone, wide enough for six wagons abreast, with carved reliefs of stags and moths running up its flanks. Beyond it, the city hit him like a wave. There were streets paved with pale cobbles. There were fountains. There were shop windows crowded with bolts of silk and cut glass and strange fruit. There were people of every shade and size, tall violet elves with branching antlers, short stout folk in fur-trimmed hoods, long-legged merchants in flowing orange robes. A man was selling roasted chestnuts from a cart, and the smell of them was so fine that Fel almost wept.

Nobody gave them a second look. Not even Old Clatter, who walked through the crowd with his great horns swaying and his amber belly-lights glowing like a string of lanterns, humming to himself and politely stepping over children.

“It’s the best part,” said Thara, leaning down from the saddle to snatch an apple off a stall. “Everyone’s so busy being rich that they forget to be scared of monsters.”

“He’s not a monster,” said Fel. “He’s very sweet.”

“That’s what I just said.”

The inn was in the Fourth Ring, on a quiet street of leaning wooden houses behind the Perfumers’ Market. It was three stories of crooked timber and old white plaster, with a sign swinging over the door that showed a golden moth with outspread wings, and a lit window on every floor. A yard behind it was bright with lanterns. There were stables. There was, to Fel’s amazement, a hitching post the size of a ship’s mast.

THE GILDED MOTH, said the sign. BEDS, BREAD, & NO QUESTIONS.

“No questions?”

“Dovra does not like questions.” Veyra swung down from the saddle and handed the reins to Brannoch. “Or people. But she makes an excellent stew.”

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The door was already open when they reached it.

The woman who stood in it was broad and short and grey-haired, and she was wearing an apron the size of a tent. She was Delvish, but old, very old, her violet skin faded to the color of a bruise, her horns worn down to stubs and capped in brass. She had a ladle in one hand. She had a pipe in her mouth. She had the flat, tired, deeply unimpressed expression of a woman who has seen everything twice, and was not about to be surprised by a third.

“Veyra,” she said.

“Dovra.”

“You are late.”

“I am five years late.”

“You are five years and a week late.” The old woman took the pipe out of her mouth and examined them one at a time. She looked at Brannoch. She looked at Thara, who grinned. She looked at Fel for a long moment, and at the bandaged hand, and at the glow leaking through the gauze, and her eyes narrowed. “Who is the boy?”

“A friend.”

“A friend.” Dovra snorted. “You have never had a friend in your life. You have had a bow and a very bad temper.”

“I have had several.”

“Bows?”

“Friends.”

The old woman looked at her. Then, to Fel’s astonishment, she laughed. It was a short, wheezing, rusty bark of a laugh, as though the machinery had not been used in some time. She stepped aside.

“Four beds. Two rooms. Stable for the beast in the back yard, with the oats and the cabbage, and if he eats the roof, you are paying for it. Dinner is in an hour.” She jabbed the ladle at Fel. “And you. Take that glowing thing out of my common room before the whole street wants to know what it is.”

“It’s just a bandage.”

“It is a beacon, boy. Cover it.”

He pulled a leather glove from his pocket and put it on. It did not help. The light shone through the seams in thin white lines, like a lamp in a shuttered room. Dovra regarded it for a moment with her lips pursed, then shrugged.

“Well. It will make the other guests nervous. That is good for business.”

They had the best stew in the world.

Or Fel thought so. He had eaten very little in a week but cold bread and the burnt rabbit that Thara claimed was a delicacy, and the stew, a rich, dark, glossy thing made of venison and mushrooms and red wine, with dumplings floating in it like clouds, was the most beautiful thing he had ever put in his mouth. He ate three bowls. He wiped the last one with bread. Across the table, Brannoch regarded him with a flicker of what might have been approval.

“You eat well.”

“I’m starving.”

“Mm. Good. A man who eats is a man who lives.”

It was possibly the longest sentence Brannoch had ever spoken. Thara put down her spoon and looked at him with amazement.

“Did you hear that?”

“I heard.”

“He made a proverb.”

“It was not a proverb.”

“It was an aphorism. Write it down.”

The common room of the Gilded Moth was low and warm and loud, with a huge hearth at one end and a ring of battered tables. A dozen guests sat eating in groups. A fiddler in the corner was sawing out a quick, wild tune. Somebody had spilled something on the floor and somebody else was arguing about it. In the center of the room, a long-legged trader in orange silk was losing a game of dice to a short, bald dwarf, and neither seemed to mind.

Fel leaned back. His ribs ached, in a dull, comfortable, healing way, and his legs felt like they belonged to someone else. For the first time in days, he felt almost safe.

“Do not,” said Veyra.

“Do not what?”

“Get comfortable.”

“I’m just sitting.”

“You are sitting like a man who believes the world is a good place.” She lifted her mug. “It is a habit I do not recommend.”