The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers Read online

  Chapter 11. Ocelon Town

  One might think, after visiting an island like Lecklock, that Wefrivain is utterly hostile to all non-grishnard species. This is not the case. Wefrivain is not a nation. It is a loose confederation of highly autonomous island kingdoms, frequently at odds and occasionally at war with each other. They are held together not by a central government, but by a central religion. Attitudes towards non-grishnards vary widely. Haplag is probably the most tolerant of the Great Islands. There, free shavier born on the islands receive a brand at birth. They are permitted to own property and some are successful business shelts. A skilled non-grishnard sailor may find employment on merchant vessels everywhere, and most harbors in Wefrivain have laws against violence to sailors of any species in port. Some kingdoms afford the rarer faun species, such as gazumelle and zeds, the same treatment as the more populous shavier. The rare panaun species, such as foxlings and ocelons, are frequently treated like lower class grishnards. Nauns do not fare so well. Grishnards consider cowry catchers to be little more than beasts. Selkies (seal shelts) are often treated like cowry catchers if they can be caught.

  —Gwain, The Non-grishnards of Wefrivain

  They reached Sern two days later and docked in Slag harbor. Sern was the westernmost of the Great Islands and the closest to the Lawless Lands beyond Wefrivain. If Silveo was uneasy about revisiting the place, he never showed it. He sent a messenger to notify the city magister of his arrival, left Farell in charge of the ship, and started off to the warehouse district with fifty armed sailors. Gerard’s wardens were left aboard ship and Gerard was, as usual, ignored.

  Gerard did not feel like fighting for the company of his wardens. Silveo’s estimation of them had been unfortunately correct, although Gerard thought that actual work was doing them good. However, he did not intend to be left behind himself. Alsair was determined to come, but Gerard shook his head.

  “I don’t want you in a situation where an arrow could be said to have fired wildly.” Before he could protest, Gerard continued. “Fly over the city. Look for suspicious activity—shelts running from the area where we’re going, large groups of fauns, that sort of thing. You can watch me and come down if it looks like I’m in trouble.” The griffin reluctantly agreed, so Gerard followed Silveo’s party alone.

  They were heading for the warehouse district, which bordered Ocelon Town. Gerard had been on Sern only once before during his coming of age tour of the islands, but he had retained strong memories of the area. Ocelons were ocelot shelts—a rare breed of panaun indigenous to Sern. They were protected by law, but tended to fill the lower ranks of employment on the island. Sern had the largest wineries in Wefrivain, powered primarily by ocelon labor, and the brothels loved them almost as much as foxlings. They were good sailors—small and agile, with an innate sense of balance on a rolling deck.

  Ocelons stood a little taller than foxlings and, like zeds, some of their fur patterns continued onto their skin. They frequently had markings on their arms and faces. Their eyes were striking—faintly almond-shaped, slitted, and often an arresting shade of green or gold. They were exotic, beautiful creatures. Perhaps their beauty had saved them from the fate of other non-grishnards in Wefrivain, but it could not save them from the poverty in which they lived. Their animal counterparts lived with them—small cats about thigh-high to most grishnards, whose spotted pelts were as gorgeous as their masters’. Only an ocelon could legally sell an ocelot pelt on Sern, the claim being such a cat had died a natural death. However, desperate or indebted ocelons were frequently pressured into killing their own animal blood kin for the expensive pelts. Silveo had been joking to Farell that morning about whether he could get away with wearing ocelot fur into Ocelon Town—an idea that Gerard found perfectly revolting.

  Now as they left the harbor, the buildings changed from the wooden sheds to shacks and finally to semi-permanent tents of leather and sailcloth. The tents were clumped so closely together as to seem like one mammoth structure, and the dirt streets between grew narrower as they went deeper into the shantytown. They passed open dung pits buzzing with flies. The stench mingled with odors of wine, cheap perfume, food, sweat, rotting meat, and unwashed bodies. Gerard didn’t remember coming to this part of the shanty town on his coming of age tour. He felt sick.

  The place seemed eerily quiet, with only the occasional golden eye peering from behind a leather flap or skinny spotted cat darting down an alley. Yet Gerard saw evidence of recent activity. A children’s jumping game had been scrawled in the dirt, with small pawprints all around. A table stood outside what must have been a restaurant, cups of tea still steaming beside the plates. He guessed that Alsair was seeing a wave of ocelons retreating from the area occupied by the Sea Watch. Curiosity made him wish he’d flown with the griffin. Are these shelts guilty about something? Or are they just frightened of the Watch? He knew that several kings of Sern had taken it into their heads to eliminate the eyesore of Ocelon Town, and Gerard suspected that the ocelons were wary of grishnards in general.

  Wooden shingles with a meaningless scrawl of lines hung above some tent doors. Gerard stared at the shingles. Ocelons have a different language, he remembered. His father had mentioned it briefly in their tour of Sern. Looking closely, he saw that many tents had small signs in the strange, sparse writing. He even thought he saw street signs. It’s a world unto itself, a world grishnards can’t even understand—a perfect place for the Resistance!

  A street vendor’s cart had been left standing, full of roasted fruits. Gerard saw some of the sailors helping themselves and resisted the urge to discipline them. He looked around at the shacks. The bone-gnawing sense of want was almost tangible. Give them a future, and they would give us anything.

  On their right, the tents gave way to a series of blocky stone and mortar buildings, heavily locked and sometimes guarded by unfriendly looking grishnards and griffins. Silveo stopped before a squat, smallish building with an intimidating grishnard guard. He proceeded to have an argument with the guard, most of which Gerard could not hear from his position in the back, although his height allowed him to see most of what happened.

  Silveo was hard to miss. He had apparently elected not to wear ocelot fur. Instead, he was dressed in a black and white striped cape, pants, and boots which gave every indication of having once been the pelt of one or more zeds. The leather had been cunningly sewn so that the furless sections formed a pattern between the furred pieces. Gerard had always been taught that wearing the pelts of shelts, even fauns, was tasteless and perverse. Silveo had completed the outfit with a white linen shirt, heavily frilled at the sleeves and a red hat bristling with feathers.

  “He looks like he’s wearing half a pegasus on his head,” Alsair had commented. “Is he trying to look taller? Because it isn’t working.”

  “I can’t unlock it,” Gerard heard the guard say. “I don’t have a key. I only patrol for the owner.”

  “Gerard!” Gerard turned to see Alsair dropping into the street, panting with excitement. “Shelts are fleeing out the back of the building! I think some of them are shavier. Quick or you’ll miss them!”