local settlement date 35,989
Tell a true believer he or she is mistaken. Tell a fish about flying.
King Namor Zujahrah
08 barbaralba's first tax collector
"Zauqir, my friend, you have come back once again to our humble home. I am happy to see you. And you have with you a friend."
"Glad to be here. Old Man. This is my friend, Barbaralba. She comes from the ocean village of my grandmother."
"Can I give you brew and soup."
"That is why we made our journey over the desert, Old Man."
"Oh, you jest, but I tell you it is brew fit for kings and queens."
"That is a good thing for Barbaralba is queen of the fishes."
"Welcome. Queen Barbaralba."
Barbaralba smiled at the old man, still somewhat overwhelmed with the village and the size of Castle City. For days they had approached and she still had trouble to believe she was awake and would not roll over to hear Russam say it was time to go out for some fish.
"We had a queen from the castle here just a few days ago. With five kings."
"Royal Family came to drink your brew. I believe it but I haven't seen royal family outside the castle but once many years ago."
"Yes, I remember. Zauqir. And the strangest thing was, it seemed quite normal. Many people came to look to see if it was true. To see the kings and a queen. The six of them came one day, drank into the late hours of the night and left the next morning."
"For no reason but to drink your brew."
"Perhaps not the only reason. The one King spoke of an old lost library. A place of many books."
"Funny place to look for a library, out among the Draves."
"They were happy to have found my brew. They seemed happy to be among free Draves. Drinking the best brew anywhere."
"I would be happy to have one now, Old Man. If you still serve Draves."
"I'll serve anyone who hasn't come to rob me."
"I've have come baring gifts."
"I am happy to hear this and have cleaned my pipe."
Zauqir sat with Barbaralba and drank a brew with her before leaving her to rest for a while so that he could attend to a little of his business. He had told her often enough how the endless city of villages around Castle City were different than the villages on and near the ocean. Here there were no taxes to collect. There were few streets big enough for a tax collector caravan. Most importantly, there were so few resources.
It was a safe enough and friendly place. But everything beyond soup and brew was hard to get.
Barbaralba sipped on her second brew and attempted to understand the shapes and smells her new world.
It was overwhelming. The size of Castle City went well beyond her imagination. The City Mountain could be seen from days away. Always getting bigger. Now, beside it, there was no more sky. Half of the world was separated by a very high wall. She knew it was round. That it ended back where it started. She could imagine not knowing that from where she sat.
In the village, there was only village and the wall. Castle City fading off up into the sky.
Barbaralba could see the cycle. And judging from the size of the villages, it seemed to allow many to live.
She missed the ocean. She wanted to dive under water to see and be seen by sea creatures. With her bow.
Her head felt like she was under water. She could see that she was not. Her bow was in Zauqir's room.
Barbaralba could hear someone singing behind the sounds of the bar and the street. It all seemed to be one thing. Some of the brew drinkers were standing on the street. Catching a passing spot of light. Sometimes they looked over at her. The Drave that had never been seen before.
The old man had just smoked some of the pressed flower Zauqir had brought him and had fallen into a light sleep. Leaning on his bar. A gentle smile on his face. Nodding occasionally at the voices around him.
Barbaralba kept thinking she had to surface to get some new air. But everything was surface. Hard surface. The Castle was too heavy. It made everything heavy.
She finished her bit of meat and sipped on her brew. The brew was making her tired. She held the metal cup against her head hoping for a cooling effect but all effects were lost in the growing commotion outside the soup kitchen. There was a big ugly man trying to focus on Barbaralba. He was demanding her attention with his screaming. He had obviously been in the sun too long. His face was well burnt and covered in blisters. The ugly man was very intoxicated. He was obviously not a Drave and was about to use his misplaced authority on Barbaralba. Everyone else moved quickly out of the way of his swinging chain.
Barbaralba wanted to get out of his path as well. She had waited too long. No more air. She saw the old man moving toward her.
"Pretty Drave, wasting in the village. I will take you to my castle."
Barbaralba had her hand on her fish knife. The creature looked like a sea monster Barbaralba had never encountered.
When he swung his chain down on Barbaralba's table she threw her brew cup in his face and jumped up, slashing both of the monster's arms as they tried to pull the chain back up.
He let the chain go and it rattled to the floor. Directly after the chain, the monster crashed to the floor. The old man had hit his on the side of the head with a piece of driftwood.
"I'm sorry, Barbaralba. Normally they never bother us here in the village. He has been too long drinking and too long in the sun. He has dried out his senses."
"It was the first time I have been spoken to by a tax collector."
"He has no tax collector rights here. He should be okay in a few days."
"I will not be looking for his company."
The old man smiled and some men that had been drinking at the bar came and carried the groaning man out and down the street to a shaded garden.
"I would like to go back to Zauqir's dwelling. I don't think I remember how to get there."
"It's not far. I will take you."
Barbaralba tried to recognize and remember things they passed. It all looked like everything else. But it was not far.
"Do you see it there."
"I see it. Thank you, Old Man."
"You had a long journey, Barbaralba. When you have rested, our village will look friendlier."
"If that sea monster attacks me again. I will defend myself."
"It will be made clear to him."
Inside Zauqir's dwelling, Barbaralba put a steel bar across the door to keep out uninvited guests. She flopped into a hammock and watched out the window. She could see trees and a few little birds. She could hear the gentle roar of the village and feel the weight of the castle almost directly over her head.
She dozed off thinking about the impossibility of finding her mother without help. Where she came from, she knew every face and every name. In the village there were more faces than fish.
Fish that could not be so easily shot and made into meat.
Barbaralba jolted at the sound of a chain.
She rolled out of the hammock, grabbed her bow and files and ran to the open window. Had there still been shutters, she could close and bar them. There were no shutters. Simply a hole in the wall.
She looked down at the tax collector. Someone had rapped his arms but they were still bleeding. Attracting sharks. The window was not possible to get to from the landing. There was a thick vine the tax collector could climb, if his arm muscles had not been slashed.
He walked back and forth in front of Barbaralba, looking for something to use as a latter. Eventually, after wandering far enough, he found exactly that. Leaning against a fruit tree. He took it and leaned it against the wall under barbaralba.
"If you climb up that latter, I will shoot fish files into you."
"Scary Fish woman."
He grinned and took his first step up. He had to drop his chain. He had a little trouble gripping the latter and leaned on it as he took his second step. There was an open space below him. The boardwalk was a couple of strides from the dwelling.
Barbaralba reached down to see if she could push the latter away. The tax collector smiled up at her.
"If you open the front door, little fisher woman, I might not break both of your legs."
Barbaralba decided to take her chances with Zauqir's sword. She took it in hand, unbolted the front door, ran down the few stairs to the walk way and hacked at the latter a couple times. The monster was surprised to see Barbaralba out of the house so fast. He was also becoming aware that the little fisher girl could be dangerous.
He pulled out his sword and slid down the latter and crashed to the walk way. A few people were watching from windows. Some were yelling at the tax collector. Barbaralba waited to see what the tax collector would do. All eyes on him, the intruder, come to have his way with a creature half his weight and size with a sword as big as his and a look he had never seen in a Drave.
"You raise your sword against a tax collector."
Barbaralba said nothing.
The tax collector laughed and lifted his sword to bring it down on Barbaralba. But he was far too slow and she stepped past him slashing his legs. He swung down with all his weight through the air and into the wooden boards of the walk way, ripping a large hole into it. He was unaware of the severity of his injury, both in his arms and his legs and spun around to swing his sword at Barbaralba again who had stood back out of the way. His momentum took him off balance and he fell off the walk way, crashing through the railing and down three stories to the dusty ground below.
Barbaralba ran down with sword still in hand to see if the tax collector was still alive. He was alive enough to see Barbaralba and many other Draves looking down at him.
"Little fisher woman. Mighty fighter."
He attempted a grin but he had run out of air. He stopped breathing. Looking at Barbaralba.
Barbaralba looked up to see Zauqir and The Old Man. And a crowd of people explaining what they had seen.
"He had come to rape me."
Zauqir put his arm around Barbaralba and led her to the stairs.
"We will make it go away. He won't be missed. And you will not be judged."
At the first flight up, Barbaralba looked to see what happened with the tax collector. He was already gone. She wanted to ask what would happen to him. But she did not really care.
"Your first tax collector."
Barbaralba smiled. But did not laugh.
chapter 09
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