Skeen's Return by Clayton Jo;

Author:Clayton, Jo; [Clayton, Jo;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2016-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

WAITING FOR WIND IN SIKURO, ROOD SAEKOL

Sikuro was a city set in a temperate paradise, a smallish sunny valley cradled between two sets of cloud-raking peaks, cultivated by folk who managed three harvests a year, with three separate crops grown from the same earth. This is how it is: start with a reed-like plant (upper level) that produces a silky tough fiber they sell mostly to the sedentary Chalarosh for their world-renowned looms; in the same mound plant a berry vine (midlevel) for jams, cordials and brandy, and a tuber vine (ground level) that is a nitrogen fixer and produces a tuber with sweet yellow flesh that can be baked, roasted or fried, whose peels can be fermented and distilled into a colorless alcohol smooth as white velvet and strong as a simoon. On the mountainsides the Sikurose ran herds of rock leapers and wiry mountain cattle; they made cheeses from their milk, sausages of their flesh, tanned their hides, spun the leaper hair into worsted they dyed and knitted into bulky sweaters, most of which they kept for their own use. The valley was a quiet peaceful place; the different Waves who lived there kept more or less to their own areas but maintained comfortable relationships with each other. The mountains protected them from land raiders (if there were Mountain Min here, they kept very quiet and only the herdsmen and women knew they existed), and the long sinuous neck of the harbor took three days to traverse and was so narrow in places that any ship traversing it was completely vulnerable to attack from the cliffs that hung over it. There were small stone watchtowers built at each of these narrows, with signal arms on each raised high enough to be seen from the next. Each ship that entered the Neck was announced by a staccato leap of jointed arms along the neck and the Five Families who ruled Sikuro and Sikuro Valley prepared for the visitor. Should the visitor be a known person, that too could be flashed from tower to tower; the Families liked to know who they dealt with. There were the standard bribes to be solicited, the perquisites of each office, there were the official fees to be collected—and there were merchants to be notified. The Families gave as well as took; they kept the peace, often by drastic means, they facilitated contacts for the captains of the trading ships that called at Sikuro, they arranged dinners and other entertainments and they policed their merchants; a Sikuro tag on an item meant top quality. Their name was a valuable asset and they meant to keep it that way.

Maggí set down her wine glass and looked around at her guests. Skeen, Timka, Pegwai, Lipitero, the four Aggitj, The Boy (Beast curled sleeping at his feet), Chulji, and her daughter Rannah. “We will be lifting anchor shortly before dawn if the wind’s on time. We’ll be tying up at Sikuro’s wharves before the morning is half over.

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