The A'Rak by Michael Shea Read Free Book Online Page A

Clummock must have three gold octals additional rent on the raft for the twenty leagues extra, while the Widow's whole funeral capital was exhausted by the remittance of the balance of our stipend, which iron nuncial protocol, of course, requires in advance, given the danger of many commissions.
    But Hagia had fine, broad smooth-flagged highways in abundance. It might be that going upriver would save some few miles of overland travel, but what did such a trifle matter? We were well paid and glad to run the whole way—to load 'shaw and cross town on the instant, and be miles up the northeast highway by noontide.
    Alas, ambiguity and ambivalences haunted the A'Rak's cult. Though entombment in one's native fane was orthodox rite, it was rarely practiced, and more tolerated than fostered by the deity. "I didn't share my lamented Glabron's piety, dear Nuncio," grieved the Dame. "The rituals are all but unknown to me—to many of us here, in truth. Master Clummock, you're as vague on the matter as I, didn't you tell me?"
    The huge bottoms man hawked phlegm and spat in the water. "The funeral thing, Dame, I don't know a bit of. I do the required. I went up to the stadium, stood for a Choosing six years back . . . I deem that's enough cult for me, thankee."
    "Yes," said the Dame. "But whatever the rules, Dear Nuncio, the heart of it is a long funeral procession like that my beloved Glabrum wished is . . . disliked by the gods as morbid spectacle, don't you see. Coffins passing through villages with the A'Rak's icons engraved on them . . . they arouse somber thoughts. Now, water acts to muffle the A'Rak's otherwise keen sensitivity to whatever treads upon his earth. Only when the wheels of your quickshaw touch earth here will the a'rakspawn clearly sense your sad burden's presence. I'm most anxious to shorten the term of that contact and its irritation to the deity. Indeed, dear Nuncio, I can't pass this topic without emphasizing to you most strongly —" here she leaned near to grip my arm, and a gust of her cachet discomfited me; her grip was surprisingly steely, as her voice seemed so as well, just then. "— most strongly stress that you must never allow the casket to fall or even touch the ground directly. Such a grave impiety could bring a visit from one of the deities. . . ."
    I disengaged my arm as civilly as I could, but my tone could not hide my sense of affront. "As the cost of our hire might have hinted to you, Dame Pompilla, a Nuncial crew of our calibre are not in the habit of dropping their consignments."
    "Oh, certainly not my dear, certainly not!" she quavered, once more a-fluttering, so that we all hastened to soothe her, and ask how to solve our impasse.
    Clummock still stood firm on his fee. Timidly, then, the widow ventured a possible solution. She revealed that she had just concluded arranging a little commercial transaction in the countryside a half day distant. "I'm to doctor a friend's gleets and be paid with the gravid ewes of the flock; two dozen and more are close to yeaning. With your crew helping, Nuncio, we could have them here mid-morrow, when good Clummock might take some in pay for the raft, and then my lamented husband could be launched, and well forward by nightfall en route to his rest."
    "Hap they be thick-fleeced and fat enough, I would," allowed Clummock, regarding the offered ewes.
    That a Nuncial crew should go shepherding was ludicrous, of course, an indignity. But, trading looks with my crew, I found grudging assent—eagerness in any case to shorten this humiliating haggle, with our turbulent client working up to a lather at every turn. Our stipend was princely in truth. Let us endure a brief irregularity, then, if it just got us shut of this odorous, clamorous woman, and put highway under our feet at last. This was a commission I wished to put briskly behind us.
    All warbling cheer at my acceptance now, the widow led Clummock aside, with some last points to show him about the casket left