The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [56]
Tycho turned up his hands in defeat. "Water the beer for someone else," he told the bartender in Common. "We're going. If you see Brin, tell him I was looking for him."
"Didn't I say I'm not an appointment book?" The bartender flicked a rag at them. "Get your elf-blood friend out of here."
The air outside was chill and damp, but sweet. Li breathed it in gratefully as Tycho led him through the shadowed streets toward the Wench's Ease. The other man gave him a sideways glance. "You traveled the length of the Golden Way and you didn't see worse places than the Eel?"
"I saw them," said Li. "I didn't enjoy them. There was an oasis deep in the Endless Wastes where the natives refuse to allow any permanent buildings and the only tavern was a kind of vast tent that served ale brewed from millet in enormous goatskin bags. The tent walls were so thick with decades of greasy soot from braziers that they could have stood on their own. The women of the area seemed addicted to millet ale and to playing a game that involved knives and carved rune-bones."
"What did the men do?" Tycho asked curiously.
"Stayed away from the women. They spent most of their time out raiding and extorting tribute from caravans."
"What else did you see along the way?"
"A lot of grass." Li dredged his memory to come up with things that might be more interesting. "Ruins. Burial mounds so ancient no one knows who raised them. A pillar of smoke in the distance that the caravan masters said was likely the cook fires from a Tuigan wedding feast. A great tower that they hustled us past in the dead of night because legend said an ancient mage lived there and would enslave anyone he saw by daylight. Another night we heard something screaming in the distance, a sound like nothing any of us had ever heard."
A smile spread across Tycho's face. "No one went to see what it was?" Li shook his head. "I would have."
Li shook his head again. "You don't go chasing after strange sounds in the night along the Golden Way. You stay by your fire and defend yourself against what comes."
"If you don't chase things down, how do you know when the journey is interesting? All you'd see is the road."
"Many people would say that's enough. That, your destination, and your home again at the end."
Tycho snorted. Li looked at him and raised an eyebrow, but Tycho said nothing else. He was looking down at the ground, scowling as he walked. "You've traveled," Li said. "You know what I mean."
"I've been all around the Sea of Fallen Stars. The road is my home. A bard who doesn't travel is just waiting by the fire to see what comes of the night. I-" He cut himself off. Li gave him a long look, but Tycho just drew a breath and glanced up, the scowl falling away from his face to be replaced by his usual twisted smile. "A bard needs new stories no matter how he gets them, right? New songs come where you learn them; Veseene told me that herself. Lots of people visit Spandeliyon from all over. Who needs to go on the road when the road comes to you?"
Li's eyes narrowed. "In Keelung," he said, "when the silk families wear strangely colored clothes and declare it a new fashion, you know that a vat of dye went bad. You're trying to put a good face on a bad problem, Tycho."
The bard sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was quiet for a moment then said, "Li, if this were happening to me anywhere else, I'd already be on the road to a new city. Brin has a long reach, but not that long. I can't do that, though. I can't run away. I can't leave Veseene." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
Li patted him on the back. "I understand. I'd rather not be in Spandeliyon either." Tycho snorted again, but in stifled humor this time, and gave a grim smile. Li hesitated then asked, "Tycho, what about the Hooded?"
They were just coming into the yard outside the Wench's Ease. Tycho stopped beside the tree there. "Forget about him, Li," he said sternly. "It's easier to go through Brin. Isn't one gang boss enough to worry about? Ask Brin about