Даниил Зверков – The Last Queen Of Noctyra: Awakening Of Aronella (страница 8)

Once, she had seen cities before which this one would have seemed no more than a village. But those cities were dead. This one lived. Breathed. Hummed with thousands of voices still blurred together into a single indistinct roar.

At the gates they had to slow.

A heavy portcullis blocked the road—wrought iron, its lower spikes long and sharp. Guards stood to either side between the stone pillars, wearing leather jackets reinforced with metal plates. Two held spears. A third had a sword at his belt and a scroll in hand.

Laen, you again? called the one with the scroll, recognizing the driver. How many times are you going to wander off? You ought to stay home and mind your grandchildren.

If you paid me every time I heard that, Id have bought myself a palace by now, Laen shot back good-naturedly.

The guard snorted and looked into the wagon. His eyes passed over Aronella, then lingered a fraction longer than they should have.

And whos this?

My niece. Distant one. From a village.

Mute, is she? Doesnt say much.

Mute she is, Laen confirmed. Swallowed her tongue, or something like it. Her parents died, so Im bringing her in.

The guard looked at Aronella again. She sat very still, looking off to one side, trying not to draw attention. Everything inside her had gone taut.

All right, go on through, the guard said at last, waving them on. But dont cause trouble. If there is any, I know you.

You wound me, captain.

With a clatter, the portcullis began to rise.

The wagon moved.

Aronella glanced back. The guards were already looking elsewhere, toward another cart approaching behind them. No one watched her.

The city opened before her.

The noise hit at once—dense, many-layered, from every direction. Hawkers shouting for buyers. Hammers ringing from the forges. Horses whinnying, wheels grinding, children crying, teamsters cursing, drunken sailors laughing as they stumbled out of taverns. All of it fused into one great roar that pressed against the ears, slipped into the skull, filled the body.

The smells came just as hard. Fish—dried, fried, rotten. Leather—tanned and raw. Tar, resin, coal. Sweat, horse dung, sour beer. Flowers crushed into the cobbles. Spices that stung the nose.

Humans.

There were so many of them her head swam. They poured along the streets in an unbroken tide—on foot, on horseback, in carts, with bundles, with children in their arms, baskets balanced on their heads. Loud. Busy. Reeking of onions and sweat.

Aronella looked at them and felt a strange sensation spreading within her, one she had almost forgotten.

Wonder.

They were everywhere.

They had taken the world.

Well? Laen shouted over the din, glancing back. What dyou think? Were living, eh?

She nodded.

The wagon crept through the crowd. Laen barked now and then at pedestrians who got in the way, waved his whip, grumbled, but never with real malice—only out of habit.

Well turn off toward the market in a minute, he said. Ill deliver the goods, and listen, maybe you ought to come home with me? Stay the night, see how things look in the morning. My wifes kind. She wont turn you away. And my daughters about your age—you might get along.

Aronella looked at him.

A simple man. Rough, irritable, but kind. He did not know who she was. Did not know what he had brought into his city.

Ill cover it if I have to, he added, mistaking her silence. Dont worry. I wont cheat you.

She said nothing.

The wagon turned into a narrow lane, then emerged into a small square crowded with carts and crates. It was slightly quieter here. Slightly calmer.

Were here, Laen said, pulling on the reins. Ill hand these sacks over and then—

He turned to look at her.

You stay put for a minute. Ill be quick.

He climbed down and headed for a warehouse, trading a few words with the laborers outside.

Aronella was left alone.

She watched him disappear through the warehouse doors. Nearby, people hurried back and forth, carrying sacks, shouting to one another, laughing. No one was paying her any attention.

Inside her, one desire grew stronger than all the rest—to leave. To vanish into the human sea, to become unseen, to watch, to learn.

Laen had been kind to her. But his kindness could become dangerous—for him. The less he knew, the safer he would remain.

She waited until he had disappeared into the depths of the warehouse, then slipped from the wagon without a sound.

One step. Then another.

And she was already in the shadow of the nearest building, merging with it, becoming part of the dark.

When Laen came back out, the wagon was empty.

He looked around, shrugged, spat.

Strange ones these days he muttered. Mute or ghost, hard to tell.

Then he went back to unloading his sacks.

She stepped into the crowd, and it closed around her like water.

No one turned. No one stared twice. She was just another face in the endless current—pale, foreign, but not strange enough to stand out.

The streets of Talirion lived their own life.

She walked, taking in everything—every face, every gesture, every fragment of overheard speech. The world of humans was far more complex than she had imagined.

There was a fishmonger shouting at the top of his lungs, praising his goods as if his life depended on it. An old woman haggling over every copper, clutching her purse as though it might vanish from her hand. Children darting between the legs of adults, shrieking and laughing, oblivious to the filth beneath their feet or the danger lurking in side streets.

A guard leaning against a wall, lazily chewing on a pie. A drunken sailor being dragged toward the docks by two companions while they cursed over his limp body. A woman in a bright scarf luring passersby toward a doorway from which came the smell of cheap wine and something else sweet and sticky.

Aronella watched them and felt like a child entering an unfamiliar forest for the first time.

Everything was strange.

Everything was new.

She emerged into the market square.

Here the voices merged into a single constant roar in which no separate word could be distinguished. Stalls stretched in both directions as far as she could see. Vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, cloth, pots, knives, rope—there seemed to be nothing that could not be bought here.

She stopped at a cloth merchants stall, pretending to study the wares while listening to two women bargaining beside her.

They raised it again, Im telling you. Soon there wont be enough left for bread.

Then dont buy from him. Gregor down that street sells cheaper.

That far?

Well, choose—your feet or your purse.