EXCOLO

Woke up before Tarquin for once and managed to get out of bed without waking him, which made me very glad. He’s sleeping heavier these days, which I guess means he’s settling down a bit, for all that he’s still jumpy sometimes when he’s awake. Had a good night last night for tips. A lot of people had come in for the market, I guess, and stopped at the Whitechapel the night before to drink. No real fights, too, which is probably some kind of a miracle.

I’ve been making a list of things we’ll need for the new place, just for myself in my head, because Tarquin would make noise if he saw something like that written down. Since the market’s here and I’ve got some time to myself, I thought I’d go out and see if anyone’s willing to make me a bargain for some of the things on my list. Plenty of the stalls are selling things no one actually needs, but I manage to get my hands on a good cast iron skillet that’ll be good for cooking nearly anything, and for something like two-thirds what it’s actually worth, too.

I’m looking for Arkady, because he’d said something the last time I saw him about how his sister makes pottery, but another stall catches my eye before I find the Chernys’. Well, the end of the old man’s pitch catches my ear, really, and it’s so ridiculous that I have to go over to see what he’s doing. I’m not the only person eying the little bottles laid out, and I’d bet I’m not the only person who doesn’t believe for a minute that they’re anything more than colored water and pretty glass.

I know better than to actually pick up one, but I do catch the old fellow’s eye. “How much?” Because that’ll get him talking faster than asking him what the stuff really is or just flat out wanting to know what the hell he’s doing. Its bullshit, pure and simple, and it’s making me angry. I’m not going to let that show, though, not yet.

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“How much?"

"Friend, know you not what it is yet," I say, smiling at the man. There is nothing much to him, but I am as content to make an average man miserable as I am a great one. "And price depends on the buyer as much as the seller. Barter, I do. I am Uri. Who are you, friend, and what do you want?"

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I study the bottles while he smiles at me. There are all kinds of words for what he’s doing, some of them nicer than others. Not going to use any of them just yet. “I know what you said it was. Are you saying it’s something different?”

Not sure what he’s trying to do by telling me the price depends on me, or that he’ll barter. It’s going to get him in trouble at the market, once a couple people have bought from him and found out they’ve been tricked. If he’d put up a set price low enough for boys to afford for their sweethearts, or if he was selling other trinkets too, then that’d be safer. But this is just stupid. He’s going to get all those bottles broken, and maybe his head, too. Nobody likes being tricked out of their money.

He’s not getting any of mine, that’s for certain. Not getting my name, either, for all that he’s told me his own. He’s no friend of mine. “I want to know what happens if you drink one of these without knowing what you want to dream about.”

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"Friend," I say lightly, "I told you not a thing. I told you I sell dreams. Each of these are different things. If you simply drank one, experience what is in the bottle you would. These are ready-made," I say, gesturing at them. "This one," I say, picking up a bottle as red as fresh blood, "is a dream of victory, and this," I say, lifting a bottle green as grass, "is a dream of spring. But if particular requests you have, I can blend them," I say. "A free sample I can give you, a little taste of something you'd fancy, and if it pleases you not, then no need to buy anything. What do you say?"

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I nod as he explains, because rolling my eyes at him wouldn’t do any good. Not sure what he’s playing at here, or why. But it’s not like he’s handing me something in a back alley asking me to taste it. Its full day, and people are still eyeing his stall. If I keel over, there’ll be a ruckus. May not do me any good, but it’d cause him trouble. If he’s willing to give out samples and still expect people to buy, then he’s either thoroughly cracked or damn sure of what’s in those bottles. Looking at him, maybe both. He really needs to stop calling me friend.

“What’s this one?” I ask him, putting my finger on a bright purple bottle. “And if you’re saying you can mix up my heart’s desire, you’re going to have to tell it to me first.” I’m being a bad, bad customer, doing just what I hate people coming into my bar and doing to me. What this fellow’s spinning just sets my teeth on edge, though. I don’t go promising people foolishness, just alcohol, and that’s what I give them.

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[cont here] (http://community.livejournal.com/estdeus_innobis/404164.html?thread=10219460#t10219460)

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It's not summer yet, but it's spring, and the air's warm and dry and still enough that the thin taste of dust puffs up when you run down the beaten eath. It's the kind of weather that makes me look at the lot and the way the earth is creeping up the wheels and tent pegs and want to ride the Carousel, hit the road, see the world unwinding as you run through it.

I'd hit the road, but I'll settle for the Saturday market, just to get out and off the lot, so I head out and down and over the Pontarlier, and there's music in it--there's music in everything these days, there really really is, a glitter and glow of sound. I thread on down to and through the crowds, listening to the chatter of voices and feet and coins, and I'm grinning, and I can't help it, and I wouldn't change it if I could. We're alive and we love...

There's a note that sounds like it's getting ready to not match the rest of the day, the warning of something low-key and sharp in the lift of the jaw and the tightening at the corner of the eyes of one of the customers at one of the stalls under the stretching light of the sun. It's all still polite, but I catch the edge of him turning down a pitch, picking away at the words of it, and I slow for a look and a listen. The old man's talking, not all flash and dazzle but a slow coax, an invitation to contemplation, the kind of thing that works here but might not in a midnight midway crowd.

I don't recognize either of them, though of course I haven't been down and 'round in town so much lately, so for all I know one of them's setting down roots and turning local and that makes a difference to things, the way they play out and the trouble he can maybe cause. And I'd hate to see another street brawl, even if it's not as mean as the riot got, 'cause that thing was six kinds of sour hell, and I wouldn't wish it or anything like it on anyone, I really wouldn't.

"And if you’re saying you can mix up my heart’s desire," the customer says, "you’re going to have to tell it to me first," and that's just reminding me of catcalls, and habit kicks in before I can even decide if I should stop my mouth.

"Oh, honey," I say, laughing a little, "man says he can make you what you want, that's a far cry from telling you what it is, you know? You've gotta have some idea of your own dreams."

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“What’s this one? And if you’re saying you can mix up my heart’s desire, you’re going to have to tell it to me first.”

I am about to answer when Zann is here, all adazzle with life. I have a brief moment of remembering when we were in bed, and I want to grind her bones to dust. But it passes.

"Oh, honey, man says he can make you what you want, that's a far cry from telling you what it is, you know? You've gotta have some idea of your own dreams."

"Quite right the young miss is," I say. "I'm a peddlar, not a scrier. That purple potion is one of passion," I say, eyes twinkling. "And perhaps not one you should sample in public, lest you be arrested for lechery." I pick up a bottle filled with liquid the colour of a rich peach. "A bottle of this will give you the memory of the most splendid of feasts - the taste of the food, the colour of the napkins, the laughter of the guests. A sip," I say, uncorking the bottle and using a small pipette to put a drop onto a teaspoon, "will be like a mouthful of champagne and the smile of a beautiful woman over her glass, or the taste of fresh bread and the feel of a velvet cushion beneath you." I hold out the spoon to him, and then smile at Zann. "And you, lady fair, can I tempt you with some kind of dreaming? You have a face that shows me you have plenty of dreams of your own, but there are always new dreams worth having."

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My finger’s still on the bottle when a girl’s voice comes behind me, calling me honey and being nice enough despite what she’s actually telling me. Far cry? Not really. If you’re going to believe someone can sell you something that’ll make your dreams come true, why not believe they can see into your heart at the same time? But I’m not going to say that, because I believe none of it. Do turn to look at her, well, down. She’s more than a head shorter than me, with a sweet face and a sweeter smile. The rest of her looks a bit scuffed, though. She works with her hands, that’s for certain. Person like that should know better than to believe there are dreams for sale here.

Don’t get a chance to answer before the man doing the selling’s talking at me again. Don’t know what a scrier is, but I can guess his meaning easy enough. I take my finger off the purple bottle slow enough. My sleeves are rolled up, so he know knows I’m not thinking of palming one of his little treasures. I don’t know why he’s after my business so much. Can’t imagine I look like I have money to spend on this kind of thing. But he keeps spinning his tale, even holding a spoon out for me to taste. “I’ll pass,” I tell him, giving the smile I usually reserve for people giving me shit across my bar. “Never been much for champagne.” I like my drinks with a little less air. Spent plenty of my life hungry, and plenty of it around good food. I don’t need whatever that stuff in that spoon might do for me.

He starts in on the girl next to me. “You can have it if you want,” I tell her, tipping my head at the spoon. And I stay to see if she’ll take it.

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"Quite right the young miss is," he says, and the cadence of his voice is singing let me tell you a story, steady and low. I grin and tip my head to him. "That purple potion is one of passion," he adds, looking back to the man who's been trying to spike his pitch. "And perhaps not one you should sample in public, lest you be arrested for lechery." And there's a couple of quick chuckles, not just from me.

"A bottle of this will give you the memory of the most splendid of feasts - the taste of the food, the colour of the napkins, the laughter of the guests," and he opens the bottle and his fingers are moving glass and metal quick and neat as he draws out a drop the colour of a mellow summer sunset, he must have been doing this for ages. For a minute I try to imagine him younger, and I can't; he seems so perfectly himself, come down all the roads through all the years in golden light.

"I’ll pass," the man says, and he's smiling. I can't tell if he's playing do-gooder for the sake of the innocent townsfolk, or just really came out cold. He's carrying a skillet, though, so I'm guessing at least he came out shopping and not looking for trouble, and if he'd been burnt by this man already I'm guessing we might already be hearing about it. "Never been much for champagne."

"Really?" I say. "I had it once, it's lovely stuff, it really is... maybe you got a bad batch? Or I just had mine on a good night." Because it was, that lovely lovely party out at the Marks' ranch, and all the bubbles in the light, holding hands with Genny and walking home.

"You can have it if you want," the man says to me, and I look to the peddlar, because... well, really, because it's his to offer, and I don't know how easy his wares are for him to come by.

"And you, lady fair, can I tempt you with some kind of dreaming? You have a face that shows me you have plenty of dreams of your own, but there are always new dreams worth having."

"I will take whatever's offered, And dream that all the world's a friend," I say, which if I remember was what the old said the young would do, but it's a true line and a true pattern in the world, and there's no harm in telling it rather than being told. "But I'd be an awful customer if I didn't manage something a little more detailed..." and I trail off for a second but there's not much question, not at all. "Do you have dreams of music? I had a friend who understood it very well. I heard her playing the piano, once, and she showed me a... a concert hall, I guess you'd say. I'd like something to remember her by, a little better."

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"I'll pass. Never been much for champagne."

"That much I see, friend," I say, smiling. "I think you're like the man in the old story, who drinks vinegar even when offered fresh water, because the vinegar is what he knows." I turn back to Zann.

"I will take whatever's offered, And dream that all the world's a friend. Do you have dreams of music? I had a friend who understood it very well. I heard her playing the piano, once, and she showed me a... a concert hall, I guess you'd say. I'd like something to remember her by, a little better."

"Music," I say, and smile. "Music I do have. Here, sir," I say to another customer who is hovering, and whose corpulent shape suggests he will enjoy a taste of a feast, "try this." I pass him the spoon. "For you, young miss, I could conjure up concertos or the sweet solitary sound of a pipe on an evening breeze. The more I know, the better I can mix. But you will not want to put your money before your mouth - or your ear, in this case. Try a little of ..." I rummage, and draw out a bottle with violet liquid, "a little of this. If you like what you hear when you taste it, blend you something better I can." I siphon a drop onto another spoon and pass it to her.

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I should never have said anything about champagne, because both of them start in on me about it. Neither of them rude, precisely, but still, they’re telling me my business. “I’ve had good and bad, sweetheart,” I tell the girl, trying to look down at her without looking down at her. She’s not the one pestering me to buy her wares. “It just doesn’t do anything for me.”

The vendor’s not letting me go, although he does poke his spoonful in someone else’s face. “I don’t drink anything I don’t know what’s in it, friend.” That’s not strictly true, but he doesn’t need to know that. Christ, I don’t know why I’m still standing here.

But then she swallows his hook, and they’re off talking about dreams and music. Can she not see she’s being taken in? That she had a friend who’s gone now is all very well, but she’s looking in the wrong place for memories in a bottle. Not that I’d invite her down to the Whitechapel, although she looks like she could handle herself. Not going to say anything to her, either, although I am going to stick around to see if she tries that sample. And if anything goes the least bit wrong after that, you can believe I’ll be down to the sheriff before this shyster can pack up his precious little bottles.

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I take the spoon from him, smiling. It's violet, like the drink they brew down at the Tavern, but cool colours instead of warm. Not so light as to be lilac, maybe a couple of shades lighter than a gloaming sky.

And it's not like the piano, it's not like the concert hall and its constellation of shapes made by human hands that turn the air into a throat. If it were, then I think I'd notice how it wasn't what I remembered, how it wasn't like Anushka. Instead it's some thing, one thing... the strings drawn steady between heaven and earth, the touch of hands making them sing out until the air around them's filled with something sweet and cool, just one part of the beginning of something greater (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g)--

And then it fades, and I can hear the man he offered the taste of a feast, saying something about... Marjorie, marjoram, I'm not sure, in a purely stunned-to-happiness voice. And the sound of the street traffic, the lift and clack of goods turned over, voices and conversation. It's not so sudden that I think I was deaf before, only I wasn't paying attention, like being caught in a daydream and not paying attention to the rest of it.

Run one hand through my hair and catch my breath. "That was beautiful," I say, and I'm smiling like it's the first of May and set-up's gone so sweet and fast we're done by noon. "It was strings, but not a guitar--I think maybe a harp, something that's all open to the air? I--" I break off and draw myself together, still smiling.

"My name's Zann, Tereixa Zann, but just Zann's fine," I say, dipping into the hint of a curtsey and holding out a hand. "And I would love to buy music from you."

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The fat man looks as if he could cry with happiness, and I am quite revolted by him but I smile and take a fold of his money and watch as with shaking fingers he stuffs the rest of the bottle into his pocket.

"Wait until you're home for that," I say warningly. "A drop on the street, that is well enough, friend, but the full dream - why, you might be run over and never notice."

I turn back to Zann, whose face is lit up. I take her hand, my gnarled strong fingers round her workworn young ones.

"Uri, they call me," I say, "from I was six days old to the present." I smile. "Tell me for what sort of music you look, and we can barter." I glance at the shaggy-haired man. "Still here, friend?" I say, amused. "Believe you any more, now, than you did before?"

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I watch her swallow down the drop on that spoon and see her face change. Whatever she’s seeing or hearing, it’s good, and it’s not anything going on around us. I find myself fighting to hold still, although I’m not sure what I would move to do. She comes up from it fast, though, looking stunned.

I have no idea what was in that stuff that he gave her. Some kind of drug, I guess, though it must be a kind I’ve never heard of, to work like that. She looks so happy, and she’s talking like she heard better than she expected. That’s a customer he’s gained, I guess, from the way she offers him her hand.

He’s pleased as punch about it, of course. I saw what the orange bottle went for, and I can’t imagine this one will go for much less, now that Zann’s tipped her hand that she wants one. Girl should know how to bargain. “Are you all right?” I ask her, because I’ve watched people come off trips before. Sometimes they look just fine until all of a sudden they’re…not.

Uri, if that’s really his name, turns to me with a smirk, asking after my opinion now. “This is all very interesting,” I tell him. “Do you mix these yourself?”

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"Uri, they call me, from I was six days old to the present," and it's a phrasing that makes me smile, with him not at him, although I think right now anything could make me smile. "Tell me for what sort of music you look, and we can barter."

"Oh, wow." Dammit, I'm not entirely sure how to describe music, not without getting into something else it sounds like, and I didn't hear quite enough of it to be sure what else it sounds like. "Strings," I say, feeling like I'm trying to describe a dream after I've had coffee, "maybe a little slow. All coming together, and building... Something strong and quiet, something that could make you understand what it's like to feel a great and terrible thing without making your heart want to break from it?" I remember the music box I made as a gift for Kent, when I came to visit him. "And that ends gently," I add. "Not broken, not cut off; more like going to sleep, resting."

"Are you alright?" the man says, and I stop and think for a moment, because it's nice of him to ask, at least. Nothing looks too bright or overloud, remind myself that if I had the chance and something was small and cheap I was thinking of getting something for Anti and Kythera--I wonder for a second what on earth they would make of this--close my eyes and touch my finger to the tip of my nose without missing, and then look at him and smile.

"I think I am, really," I say. "Thank you." I don't bother telling him he should try it, because nudging him in front of Uri is not likely to make him change his mind, but I hope he does. He doesn't even have to buy, but the samples are amazing... I imagine they're what like cinema and recordings used to be, before everything ended. I've heard stories. "Skeptical?" I say in a friendly tone, lowering my voice a bit. And then he's asking Uri where he gets his wares, and I listen.

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The man's not coming round, not exactly, but he is interested. Well enough.

“This is all very interesting. Do you mix these yourself?”

"Oh," I say, "dreams I buy, my friend, though then I blend them. A dream that's from scratch made tastes of nothing real. We must have true dream in the blend to make it sing, do you see?" I smile. "If you have dreams you want not, I can buy them."

I turn back to Zann, and she talks of the music she wants. It sounds like Anushka, and I feel a pale distant sort of sadness, like grass bleached through the summer into yellow-white drifts.

"Make you something of that I can," I say. "Will you pay cash for it, or will you trade? I take dreams," I say, "and oddities."

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I think she’s all right, because she’s talking clearly and moving like she knows where she is. And that smile. God, that smile. I tip my head to her question, meaning yes but not wanting to say it outright with Uri standing right there.

He doesn’t seem to take offense. He’s still calling me friend, at any rate. The way he explains his business sits about as well with me as anything I’ve seen him do today. It’s just more smoke for a cover of I don’t know what, but he believes it. He’s looking right at me with that strange smile. I can’t tell what color his eyes are, and it unsettles me. And then he’s offering to buy my dreams. Good God, the idea’s one that should make me laugh in his face, because how the hell do you buy a dream? But he’s dead serious, and I don’t feel much like laughing myself.

What I’m thinking about is this cracked old man telling me he’ll give me money for things out of my head, as well as some of the dreams I’ve had in my time. The one that woke me up earlier than I’d have liked this morning. I was back in the cornfield south of the house I grew up in, lying between the rows staring up at the sky. Couldn’t hear anything but the wind, or smell anything but dirt and green. I could tell something was coming, though, something bad, but I couldn’t move to run away from it.

The words are out of my mouth before my brain can think to stop them. “Do you buy nightmares?”

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“Do you buy nightmares?”

I look at the man for a moment, smile glimmering at the corner of my mouth, and then I reach underneath the stall, withdraw a battered suitcase with a heavy lock. I unlock and open it. It is full of more small bottles, and these are as colourful as the ones on the table. But somehow, despite their pretty shades, these bottles wink and glisten with malevolence.

"I do," I say. "But no bread-and-butter dreams of teeth falling," I warn. "Only the best sort of nightmares. Many of these," I say, "were given to me for free, their owners so glad they were to be rid of them." I smile. "But we can negotiate a price, if the goods worth it are."

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"Make you something of that I can," Uri says, and I smile. "Will you pay cash for it, or will you trade? I take dreams and oddities."

"I don't have oddities," I say thoughtfully. "I mean, I can make things that might count, puzzles and orreries and music boxes, but I don't exactly keep any on hand." And I can't help but smiling, because I've got the one I'm building right now, but that's not one that's up for trading. "I can probably fix anything that needs fixing, and I've got coin... Give me a second to think about dreams?"

"Do you buy nightmares?" the other--not customer, I guess, he's pretty clear about that--says, and I hadn't thought of that. And Uri almost smiles and brings out a little box of secrets, all glister and shine, bright as Laylah's snakes.

"Only the best sort of nightmares," he says, and I look at the bottles and shiver. I've had nightmares, sure, but I don't think any of them still tear me up to think about.

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My question asked, he just looks at me for a long moment, making me start to feel like the cracked one here. And then he reaches down and pulls out a locked case. The bottom falls out of my stomach, and I don’t quite know why. Looking at the new rows of bottles, which I guess are meant to be other people’s nightmares, I start to feel a little better. Nothing that comes out of person’s head looks that pretty done up in glass. “No bread and butter dreams,” I tell him, and my voice sounds almost normal in my own ears.

This is five kinds of mad, just talking about this, but if it’s madness that means I walk away with cash in hand after he talks to me or hypnotizes me or whatever he needs to do to convince himself that he has my dreams, then it’s madness I can stomach. And if it means that somehow my head isn’t full of ice or breaking glass or back alleys after, then so much the better. “Though I’d be lying if I said I knew how to sell them to you.”

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"I can probably fix anything that needs fixing, and I've got coin... Give me a second to think about dreams?"

"Think on it," I say, smiling, "because I like best to trade like for like. But if you can think not of any you'd part with, we can trade in pieces - a little cash, a little trade."

“Though I’d be lying if I said I knew how to sell them to you.”

"That's an easy enough matter," I say with a smile. "Simply need you think hard on it, and I draw it from you," I say, drawing out a fine syringe, "and mix it with this tincture," I add, indicating a bottle of clear liquid that still somehow shimmers in the light. "But first," I say, "think on the dream and breathe in this bag," I say, holding up a small sack that rattles slightly, "and I'll see whether yours is a dream worth buying."

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Easy enough matter, he says, and I have to keep thinking hard about what the money he’s offering will go to buy to make myself stay where I am as he pulls out that needle. Can’t think of many things in the world I’d rather have less to do with. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that it just doesn’t work that way, that you can’t pull something out of a person’s head that’s a thought and a memory.
But then he’s pulling the needle back and holding out a little jingling sack to me. He’s damn sure he knows what he’s doing here, and I’ll go along with this part, at least. Not sure what he’s going to take from my thought and breath, but I can give those to him.
It’s less easy to pull up a memory of cold that creeps in everywhere, of going to sleep frozen and waking up frozen. I’d pushed it away, that dream of being lost in an icy forest that never ended, desperately exhausted but not daring to sleep for fear of never waking up. That dream doesn’t come so much anymore, but I used to wake up wondering if I was dead. But hell would have been warm, at least.

I raise the bag to my mouth and blow into it. Wouldn’t mind having that dream gone.

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I take the bag from him and shake it, and then empty it into my palm. I let him see what has come out - shards of ice, and I put one on my tongue and swallow it. Then I smile at him.

"Such a cold dream," I say. "Give you this I could for it," I continue, showing him a small fold of money, "or have you can any of the bottles on this front row. They are worth more than the cash."

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I watch him with the bag, waiting for him to do something tricksy, but he just shakes the bits out. Looks like ice, but I guess it could be anything. Wish I’d thought to take a peek in there before, but it’s too late now. He puts one piece in his mouth, smiling at me like he’s got me. ”Such a cold dream.”

Wasn’t feeling too good before, but now I feel like someone’s hit me hard in the stomach. Something is going on here, and I don’t understand it, and I really, really don’t like it. Staring and stammering and asking how will only make that smirk wider. “I’ll take the money, thanks,” I tell him firmly, too shaken to bargain. “What else do you need to do?”

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Oh, honey, you're looking a little--well, you're looking like the townies were back in summer, when Tez pulled out secrets and left them stunned. I feel sorry for him, a little, wish he'd taken the sample; I think it'd would have been an easier way to get the measure of all this. And oh, that music... (http://community.livejournal.com/estdeus_innobis/404164.html?view=10391748#t10391748)

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I can manage coin, it's not anything I'd do lightly but I'm pretty sure I can. "When you're done," I say polite and low to Uri, not to interrupt but just to mark that I am interested. And then I glance to the customer, smiling a little. "Better rid of it, right?" I say, picking a tone that's something between gentle and cheerful. I mean, god, he's playing it well but he came out cold to the pitch and going from there to seeing the cold come out in shivers and slivers like that has got to be a bit unnerving.

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"Better rid of it, right?"

"Just-so, young miss," I smile, and I look back at the man. “I’ll take the money, thanks. What else do you need to do?”

"A bargain it is," I say, and I put the fold of money on the table beside him. "This is a dream needle," I say, taking the syringe, and I take his wrists and tap it until the vein shows clear, and then I draw a very little blood from it and squeeze the syringe into a vial of clear liquid. The liquid swirls briefly red, and then becomes a shade of frosted blue, cold as a winter morning. "And we are done."

I turn back to Zann.

"Have you thought on it, then? What you might offer?"

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