Stuck in Magic CH4
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Chapter Four
The city – Damansara – was … striking.
I was used to cities that sprawled out until they blurred into the suburbs, overrun towns or countryside. Damansara was a walled mass, with a clear line between the city and the country outside. The land immediately outside the city had been cleared, providing absolutely no cover for an invading army bent on looting, raping and burning its way through the city. I could see a handful of men on the battlements, watching the distant horizon. I hoped it was just paranoia. The idea of being caught up in a war was far from appealing.
The stench grew worse as we made our way towards a gatehouse that looked a lot like the Jugroom Fort. It wouldn’t stand up to modern weapons for a second, I decided, but it would be difficult to assault without firearms and explosives. The gates were designed to allow only a couple of wagons and carts through at any one time, ensuring the guards would always have the advantage in numbers. I was pretty sure there were cauldrons of boiling oil positioned above us, ready to make life miserable for anyone who caused trouble, and archers on the battlements. I’d seen archers in the SCA. Bows might not have the flexibility of guns, but an arrow through the gut could be lethal. The men who’d died at Agincourt might as well have ridden straight into machine gun fire.
I shivered, helplessly. There was a sense of age around the gatehouse that was almost a physical presence. I’d seen buildings from the colonial era and none of them had the sense of being hundreds of years old. This one looked as though it had changed hands time and time again without ever losing its sense of purpose. I felt tiny and insignificant as we joined the line of horse-drawn carts waiting to pass through the gatehouse, my eyes threatening to water as the stench grew worse and worse. I’d been in a dozen hellholes with poor sanitation and no clean water and this was worse. The stench of too many people and animals in too close proximity was almost unbearable. I did my best to bear it without complaint.
The guards eyed us nastily as we inched through the gatehouse – I was uneasily aware that the building was designed to let the defenders pour boiling oil on unwanted guests – but waved us through without comment. I was surprised. They looked the type of guards to demand bribes before they let anyone through the gates, their clothes so tattered that the only thing that marked them as guardsmen were the white sashes on their shirts. I’d seen more impressive policemen lazing in their cruisers or stuffing themselves with donuts. And yet, some of them had lean and hungry looks that bothered me. It was never good to attract the attention of the police in a third world country. They were almost always deeply corrupt.
Jasmine looked uneasy as we made our way onto the streets. I didn’t blame her. The city reminded me of New York, although the buildings were smaller and much less impressive. They seemed to hem us in, looming over the crowded streets and casting long shadows into our hearts. I had the sense we were driving straight into an ambush, although I couldn’t have said why. A team of men with modern weapons could have made an attacker pay in blood if he wanted to take the city. And the local population would pay too.
I studied the crowds curiously as we made our way down the road. They were of all colours and creeds, from men darker than myself to women so pale I thought they were albinos. There was no unity, as far as I could tell: there were people covered from head to toe and people wearing barely enough to cover their privates. Some looked extremely rich, surrounded by cronies and bodyguards as they paraded through the city; some looked so poor they had to be beggars, constantly begging for alms. I felt a pang as I saw a handful of amputated men, sitting by the roadside. There was nothing I could do for them.
The stench – incredibly – seemed to get even worse. I tried not to think about the sewers. I wasn’t convinced that any of the buildings had any plumbing. The buildings themselves were an odd mix, a blending of medieval styles from all over the world. I thought I saw European influences, mingled with Arab and Far Eastern. It was easy to believe, suddenly, that I wasn’t the first person to find my way across the dimensional gulf. I was alone, but if an entire town or city had been scooped up and shipped to a new world …
Jasmine pulled on the reins as we entered a large courtyard. “We’ll be setting up here,” she said, as the rest of the travellers parked their caravans in a circle. It reminded me of cowboys readying themselves to repel an ambush. “And then we can go explore.”
I nodded, stiffly. My arms and legs were aching, but that was nothing a little exercise wouldn’t cure. Jasmine hopped down effortlessly and waved to her grandfather, who started barking instructions with the air of a man who expected to be obeyed. I scrambled down beside him and hurried to work, lifting boxes of goods out of the caravans and piling them up as directed. Jasmine was setting up a small stall, a structure that looked oddly childish until she completed the finishing touches. A couple of younger girls hurried up with a tray of tiny glass jars and bottles. Potions, from what she’d told me earlier. I still found it hard to believe they actually worked.
“It’s a little quieter than I expected,” Brother Havre said, from behind me. I tried not to jump. I’d always had the feeling he didn’t like me. Given that he kept making eyes at Jasmine, I was fairly sure he was jealous. “There should be more people on the streets.”
I gave him an odd look. The courtyard was empty, save for us, but the streets beyond were crowded. New York wasn’t so busy and, the last time I’d visited, it had been heaving with people. It looked as if there was no hope of getting out of the courtyard, let alone back to the gatehouse and onto the road. The older folk looked uneasy as they finished setting up their stalls. I didn’t blame them. I’d grown up in a city and I found Damansara oppressive as hell.
“There should be more,” Brother Havre repeated, reading my face. “It’s oddly quiet.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. A pair of wealthy men – judging by their clothes – appeared on the edge of the courtyard. “Who are they?”
“Inspectors,” Brother Havre said, darkly. “You go back to Jasmine. I’ll take care of them.”
I nodded. I had no trouble recognising his attitude. I’d been much the same, before the army had knocked it out of me. I was tempted to point it out to him, but I knew he wouldn’t listen. I wouldn’t have listened at his age. Instead, I turned and walked back to Jasmine’s stall. She smiled at me as I came up.
“Grandfather says we can explore the town,” she said, pressing a pair of coins into my hand. “We just have to be back in time for tea.”
I felt an odd little qualm. Jasmine hadn’t said anything about it, but … it was clear I’d have to make a decision, soon, about what I wanted to do with myself. Stay with the travellers or find a place somewhere else … I cursed under my breath as I accepted the coins and studied them thoughtfully. I just didn’t know enough to make up my mind. What was I going to do? I didn’t know.
Jasmine passed me a long cloak, then donned one herself despite the heat. I pulled mine on and followed her out of the courtyard, into the packed streets. They weren’t as bad as I’d feared. The crowd seemed to know when and where to move, walking in long lines that moved surprisingly quickly. It was worse on the roads. Oxen carts clashed constantly with horse-drawn carriages, their drivers shouting curses at each other … it struck me, suddenly, that they might be real curses. A handful of guardsmen were trying to calm everyone down, but it didn’t look as though they were having much luck. It looked as though a dozen fights were constantly on the verge of breaking out.
I kept my eyes open, watching the crowd. A small boy – he couldn’t have been older than eight – eyed me speculatively. I eyed him right back and he looked away … a pickpocket, probably. An older man groped Jasmine’s rear … I started forward, intending to punch his lights out, but there was no need. There was a flash of light and a wave of heat … he staggered away, clutching his hand and cursing openly. I stared at her in astonishment. I would never be truly used to magic.
It was all around me, I realised dully. Street magicians played with fire for the locals, or performed tricks that might have been sleight of hand … or real. I’d seen my share of street performers, in the states and overseas, but I wanted to stop and stare like a rube. Jasmine stood next to me for a few moments as a man turned a woman into a statue, moved her into an absurd pose, then released the spell. She staggered, her face twisting as if she was unsure if she wanted to laugh or cry. Jasmine caught my hand and pulled me away. I didn’t try to resist. I didn’t dare lose her, not in a city I didn’t know.
Jasmine kept up a running commentary as we made our way onwards. The veiled men and women were high-ranking aristocrats … or, the cynical part of my mind added, people aping their social superiors. How could one tell if one couldn’t see their faces? The middle and merchant classes wore more dramatic clothes respectively, showing off their wealth if not their breeding. The poor wore rags. I couldn’t help feeling sick at the sheer number of poor and desperate people on the streets, from pickpockets working the crowd to topless prostitutes who looked as though they were coming to the end of their lives. I saw the desperation in their eyes and shuddered, helplessly. They didn’t want to be on the streets, but what choice did they have?
We walked past a row of temples – Jasmine’s disdain was obvious – and past a set of mansions before circling back towards the marketplace. There were fewer people on the streets, something that alarmed me before I realised it was getting hotter and hotter. The locals probably took siestas, sleeping through the heat and returning to the streets when it grew cool again. Or as cool as it ever got. The terrain outside the city strongly suggested the kingdom was one bad summer from drought and famine.
“This might interest you,” Jasmine said, as we stopped by a stall. “What do you think?”
I stared. The stall was covered with books. They looked oddly tattered, as though they’d passed through multiple hands or simply produced by printers who didn’t quite know what they were doing, but … they were books. And the letters on the front were English letters … I reached for one and picked it up. The language was impenetrable gibberish, as if someone had tried to transliterate a foreign language into a pronunciation guide, but … they were English letters. And Arabic numbers. I’d wondered, earlier, if I was truly the first person to cross the dimensional gulf. I knew now I was not. There was no way a completely separate world could have duplicated the letters and numbers so precisely. God knew Latin and Chinese numerals had nothing in common with their Arabic counterparts.
The sense of unreality washed over me – again – as my eyes swept over the rest of the books. There were instructions on how to build a steam engine … I couldn’t read the text, as if the book had been produced by IKEA, but I could follow the diagrams. Others showed how to produce printing presses, abacuses and looms … one of them looked something like a spinning jenny. I stared down at a book about the human body, shaking my head in disbelief. It was just … unreal.
“My wife laughed at that book,” the stallkeeper said. He had the air of a man telling a joke that never got out. “Can you believe they left out one of the holes?”
I put the book down, wishing – suddenly – that I could read. It was easy enough to sound out the words – I guessed there was no clear agreement on proper spelling – but … Jasmine’s spell didn’t seem to work quite right when I said the words to myself. I was tempted to ask if we could buy one of the books, but … I frowned as I realised the true implications of what I was seeing. I’d assumed my knowledge of modern life would give me something to sell, when – if – I left the travellers … I cursed under my breath. I should have known better than to assume anything. All of the low-hanging fruit, when it came to industrial development, had already been plucked. I didn’t know if there was another cross-dimensional traveller or not, but it didn’t matter. I could no more produce a jet engine or a computer for them than I could get pregnant and give birth …
Jasmine steered me down the stalls. I followed, feeling numb. Stalls selling food contrasted oddly with stalls selling weapons, primitive blunderbusses and muskets that looked as if they would explode in the user’s hands. It was strange to note that the stallkeepers had gunpowder weapons out in the open, but no edged weapons bigger than a dagger. There were no swords, no spears … it made no sense. Or did it? If gunpowder weapons were unreliable, and I had the feeling they weren’t particularly accurate, they might not be seen as dangerous to the balance of power. The thought made me smile. If the gunsmiths were producing blunderbusses now, what would they be churning out in a decade or two? I hoped I’d be around to see it.
I touched the pistol at my belt and smiled. The odds were good it would be worth a lot of money, if I sold it. I didn’t want to sell it. I’d had to leave behind far too much already. And besides, it would useful … at least until I ran out of ammunition. There was no hope of finding more, not here. I doubted the local gunsmiths could do anything with the pistol, except – perhaps – taking it apart for ideas.
Jasmine stopped in front of a food cart and bought a pair of squidgy sandwiches that might have passed for hot dogs, if they hadn’t been squashed by the seller. I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat it – the cart looked terrifyingly unhygienic – but my stomach rumbled loudly the moment I took a sniff. The stench of the city had faded … no, it hadn’t faded, I’d just gotten used to it. I wanted a bath. It didn’t look as through the locals bothered to wash. Even the richer ones looked filthy.
This city is a breeding ground for disease, I thought. I’d seen all kinds of diseases in third world hellholes, some of which had been alarmingly close to home. Do they even know to boil water before they drink?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. There was no water on sale, not even the ever-present bottled water I’d seen in the Middle East. Everything looked alcoholic, which made a certain kind of sense. Beer and wine had been safer, at least in the short run, until people had figured out the importance of clean water. I gritted my teeth, then bit into the sandwich. It tasted better than I’d expected, with a spicy sauce that make my mouth burn, yet … I didn’t recognise the meat. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what I was eating either. Cat? Dog? Snake? Who knew?
“We’d better start heading back to the caravans,” Jasmine said. She gave me a sidelong look as we started to walk. “What do you think?”
I hesitated. The city might grow on me, if I let it. I could find a place to stay, surely … I shook my head. I didn’t know where to find a job or … or anything. I looked at the beggars and shuddered, wondering if I’d end up begging myself. What could I do, to make a living? Teach the locals how to make sandwiches? They already knew how to make sandwiches. I probably knew all sorts of things they could use, but … how could I make myself heard? I didn’t know.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. The city did have its good points. “If I stay … what would I do?”
“They’re very accepting of newcomers here,” Jasmine told me. “People come from all over the world, just to trade their wares. There’s always work for someone who’s willing to work.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. The Diddakoi weren’t that accepting. I’d have to dedicate myself fully to them, if I wanted to stay permanently. It was just a matter of time, I feared, before they started asking pointed questions. “When do I have to decide?”
“We’re due to leave in five days,” Jasmine told me, as we entered the courtyard. She squeezed my hand, reassuringly. “You have until then to decide.”
