Part 6 (1/2)
”Traum: the crossroads to nowhere,” said a young clerk with a voice that broke in midvowel. ”Or everywhere: it's the same thing, en't it?”
”I don't know Traum from Tenniken, or a troll from a trolley car,” said Brrr, admiring his own cleverness.
The clerk rolled his eyes. ”Looking to buy a good map?” He pulled out a colored chart of the district.
Brrr had never seen a map before. He struggled to make sense of the sc.r.a.ped lines and shaded patches. A wispy gentleman, in looking for some snuff, leaned over the counter to see. ”I taught geographics and natural civics to unteachable boys for thirty years,” he said. ”Allow me to explain.”
The Lion learned that Traum had sprung up in a gentle valley between folds of forested hills. The valley allowed for a train line originating in distant s.h.i.+z, to the southwest, and running to Traum and beyond. To the northeast, the line was built on steep and inhospitable ground. Trellised and b.u.t.tressed in precipitous style, the tracks climbed upslope until they reached the quays of the famous Glikkus Ca.n.a.ls.
”Famous to some but not to all,” said Brrr.
The old fellow took a pinch of snuff. He was warming to his subject.
”The Glikkus channels are carved by some natural event of such mind-numbing antiquity that their origin can be explained only by myth. They serve as a merchant's route to the emerald mines in the western Scalps of the Glikkus. The mountain natives-called Glikkuns, though none can deny they are anything but trolls, really-take advantage of those natural waterways and our industrial rail line to bring their emeralds to market.”
”Yes, but which way is Tenniken from here?”
”Traum is the trading post for the whole emerald industry. Why do you want Tennikin?” asked the clerk. ”We have quite a line of emerald souvenirs, including a kind of fudge peppered with emerald dust.” The lone box of fudge wore a mantle of ordinary dust upon it, suggesting that the delicacy was more a novelty than a necessity.
”Is Tenniken on on the rail line?” asked Brrr. the rail line?” asked Brrr.
”Look, there's some stumpyfolk now,” said a burgher's wife, clutching her shawl about her, as if to preserve her respectability, even at this distance. ”Stars and st.i.tches, but they give me the goosey s.h.i.+vers!”
Brrr regarded the Glikkuns through the open door of the establishment. They were stout and stubby. Like many creatures who spend a good part of their lives underground, they were bleached out.
”If we Gillikinese are pale, at least compared to the darker tribes of the Vinkus and the ruddy b.l.o.o.d.y Quadlings, Glikkuns are downright albinoid,” murmured the doddery gentleman, who apparently couldn't resist a spontaneous lecture. ”Am I right? Am I right about this?”
”They look like walking farmcheeses to me,” agreed the goodwife.
A Glikkun family group loitered outside, deciding whether or not to venture into the shop. A blond moss capped the scalps of them all, from the papoosed newborn to the elders. The eyes of trolls, what Brrr could make out through their perpetual squint, glinted like steel, the pale white irises appearing to rise in blue alb.u.men. Both males and females sported hunches p.r.o.nounced enough to need wrapping in dedicated hunch-coats, each secured by b.u.t.tons and straps and elasticized hems.
They carried short, stout dirks in skarkskin sheaths.
”That's their chief,” whispered the schoolmaster. ”A woman named Sakkali Oafish.”
A troll woman in leather leggings and a grey scarf rubbed the belly of her pregnant companion and scowled around her.
”She's just got wind of the scam-I mean the scheme,” said the clerk. ”Oooh, dark night, alley, that carving knife: not for me.”
”When their babies want to suck, the Glikkuns offer the knife instead of the t.i.t,” said the goodwife. ”Puts 'em off milk at once and stunts their growth, making 'em more Glikkuny than ever.”
”The Wizard of Oz wants emeralds, he gets emeralds,” said the schoolteacher. ”The Wizard of Oz makes the laws. In this case, the law of supply and demand. He demands it, they supply it. End of discussion.”
”The Wizard of Oz,” said the Lion, remembering the question of the Ozmists. He wished he had the nerve to say ”The WOO” in a superior, derogatory tone, but he didn't trust himself to be able to carry it off.
”The Wizard of Oz, yes. You just crawl out from under some rock?-the chief potentate, if self-proclaimed, of the whole beloved country, thank you very much. He has recently kicked off a schedule of public works in the Emerald City that requires a goblin-h.o.a.rd of emeralds. A fourfold increase from the usual amount requisitioned. The Glikkuns have stepped up production in their mines and arranged for transport of the emeralds to Traum. Here they collect their fees in cash and grain and medicine.”
”And vermouth,” intoned the clerk, knowingly.
”You serve trolls in here, don't you,” said the goodwife.
”Their coin weighs the same as yours,” said the clerk. ”Madame.” ”Madame.”
”The economy of Traum relies on the trolls,” said the schoolmaster. ”And I don't know why they should be complaining. Business has never been so brisk for them. Ever. But, my dear boy,” he continued to the clerk, ”I do think you could make a legitimate argument for barring the door against an angry mob.”
If the seven-person family group outside const.i.tuted a mob, it wasn't entirely angry. The Glikkun baby chortled as it sucked on a sugar stick.
”What's their gripe?” asked Brrr, going toward the back of the shop, pretending to inspect the wares displayed there-a line of women's foundation garments. Camisoles, bustiers, smocks, and pantaloons.
”Close the door up, mercy on us,” hissed the goodwife to the clerk.
The schoolmaster rooted through his purse to pay for his snuff. ”Sakkali Oafish has just gotten wind of an...an irregularity, shall we say, in the arrangements. The Traum merchants are paying the Glikkuns the going rate for emeralds, fair and square and in conformance with trade agreements-but our merchants are transporting the crop of jewels by rail down to s.h.i.+z, and they have begun to mark up the wares fourfold. For the simple job of loading emeralds onto the trains and unloading them several hundred miles south, the merchants are getting fat on the labor and product of the Glikkun miners.”
”The Glikkuns get their due,” said the clerk, ”as I hear it told. The guild of traders has never stiffed the trolls a penny farthing.”
”Contracts hold, but contracts can be unfair, too,” a.s.serted the gentleman.
”We're in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the goodwife. ”I'd have been a smarter woman to have gone visiting my sister in Tenniken like she asked me to instead of finding myself here on this day of all days.”
”Tenniken! The home of the soldiers,” said Brrr. ”Can you get there by train, do you know?”
”I can. Not certain trains are serving the likes of you.” can. Not certain trains are serving the likes of you.”
”I don't understand why we're seeing trouble today,” said the young clerk, whose pink-ham face was going pale and his voice cracking in higher registers than before.
”Aren't you paying attention?” snapped the schoolteacher. ”Sakkali Oafish has just learned about the trade inequities. The merchants taking twenty florins for every five the trolls get. She's spitting nails. She's declared she'll call a strike unless the agents of the s.h.i.+z merchants pay double the negotiated rate for the emeralds they take, starting with the current s.h.i.+pment. Today. Before the Glikkuns leave. But the agents for the s.h.i.+z merchants are balking, saying that they aren't authorized to enter into a new agreement, nor do they have the funds on hand to pay an unantic.i.p.ated surcharge. Of course the Glikkuns are mad as hornets. And like all trolls, stubborn to boot. The whole town is waiting to see if they start to riot.”
”Our husbands are getting their guns,” said the goodwife. ”They'll take care of the matter. The Traum civic militia drills once a week.”
”Drills for ten minutes, drinks beer the rest of the evening,” replied the schoolteacher.
”My Aimil is in the service and he can shoot to kill at fifty yards even when he's dead drunk.” She sniffed in pride. ”Good lad.”
”I hope your Aimil is stopping for an ale then, because there will be shooting here before the moon is up.”
”Mark my words. They'll show those Glikkuns the business end of a blunderbuss. Do some good, to boss the clammy little pasty-blobs about,” said the goodwife.
”Severity rarely helps in instances like this,” replied the gentleman.
”You setting yourself up as a court of justice all by yourself?” The goodwife raised her chins and rounded her lips as if tasting something unsavory. ”Why en't you going to live underground with the mole folk, if you endorse them so pitifully?”
”I'm not a court of justice-merely a commentator for our ignorant visitor,” said the schoolmaster mildly. In the spark of their little exchange, the Lion had retreated farther into the shadows.
”That petticoat will never fit you. It's a pet.i.te,” said the clerk, either nastily or trying to make a joke and diffuse the situation. ”A lady lady is pet.i.te.” is pet.i.te.”
”I'm shopping for a friend,” replied Brrr, as frostily as he could, dropping the garment. He had thought it was some sort of headdress, with its lacy eyelets and scalloped hem.
”I suppose you're friends with them them?” asked the burgher's wife. ”You arrived with them, and all?”
”I never did.” Brrr tried harder for a tone of offense. ”I have nothing to do with them.”