Of course I had to drink with
Evarin, the elaborate formal ritual without which no bargain on Wolf is
concluded. He entertained me with gory and technical descriptions of the
way in which the birds, and other of his hellish Toys, did their
killing, and worse tasks.
Miellyn danced into the room and upset the exquisite solemnity of the
wine-ritual by perching on my knee, stealing a sip from my cup, and
pouting prettily when I paid her less attention than she thought she
merited. I didn't dare pay much attention, even when she whispered, with
the deliberate and thorough wantonness of a Dry-town woman of high-caste
who has flung aside her fetters, something about a rendezvous at the
Three Rainbows.
But eventually it was over and I stepped through a door that twisted
with a giddy blankness, and found myself outside a bare windowless wall
in Charin again, the night sky starred and cold. The acrid smell of the
Ghost Wind was thinning in the streets, but I had to crouch in a cranny
of the wall when a final rustling horde of Ya-men, the last of their
receding tide, rustled down the street.
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