Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 21

 Endormax had a head start. He had already crossed the square in front of the library, and had managed to put a crowd between himself and Nikias.

It looked as though the warehouse fire hadn't scared the stallholders who liked to work in that square, for they had wheeled along their handcarts and trolleys, and raised up their tents of red, green and blue, and now they sold sugarcane, dried figs, honeyed apples, and many kinds of meat rolled and baked in pastry. One stallholder put on a puppet show, and he'd drawn a crowd of children who gaped in awe at the story of Teta the magician. Nearby, a hairy, barrel-chested man danced on his hands, and juggled swords with his feet. The square had the enticing yeasty aroma of a good bakery, and was alive with the stallholders' voices, urging people to buy their wares, and the laughter of children, delighted at the shows.

Nikias dashed down the steps, and plunged into the mass of people. As soon as he entered the crowd, he lost sight of Endormax, and as men and women packed close upon him, he couldn't make out any landmarks to guide him. He shoved his way through the press, trusting his instinct to guide him.

From outside, the crowd had looked like a pleasant scene. Once in it, he found it felt too hot, people jostled him, and a little girl with pigtails ran stepped on his feet as she ran, screaming with laughter. The sweet scent of honeyed apples and dried figs was replaced with the up close smell of human bodies; their sweat, one woman's unwashed hair, and the rancid oil another wore, or worse, the excessive amounts of perfumed powder that an elephantine old woman wore, they combined in the air to assault his nose.

He kept moving towards the other side, but something odd was happening. The crowd kept getting thicker, so that every way he looked, he saw a bigger mass of bodies. He moved up from shoving to shouting, but he couldn't hear his own voice. He stepped it up, and began to use a vicious combination of elbow jabs and toe stomps to clear a path.

It worked.

He started to make progress, albeit with a trail of moans and curses at his back. He was careful around small children; quite apart from their delicate bones, they tended to bite. He burst out of the crowd, sweaty and tired. He found himself at the near end of the street where he'd last seen Endormax.

The aged librarian had vanished.

Nikias didn't waste time cursing fate and the gods. He hurled himself down the street, running as fast as he could. No matter how much of a head start the old man had, he could never outrun a soldier in his prime.

He kicked up dirt as he ran along the unpaved street, and bits of grit got into his sandals. He ignored the irritation. The buildings on either side were two-storey brick houses, but this had to be a poor neighbourhood; the walls hadn't been whitewashed in years, and the bricks were crumbling. The second storey of each house, which blocked out the sun, and left Nikias running through shadows, was really no more than a wooden shack. Flimsy, in comparison with the brick of the first storey, it was also light enough not to overstress the cheap brickwork.

The street curved, and kept the far end hidden from view. He pushed himself to pass the middle, expecting to catch sight of his quarry. He had so many questions for Endormax. Now he remembered Kleon had said he'd suspected the circle had a man in the library. Endormax was one of them!

He passed the middle of the long street, and skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, his jaw slack.

The street was empty.

"It's the ring of Gyges all over again," he muttered to himself. He looked back to check. Perhaps Endormax had burrowed under the earth, or he had grown wings and taken to the air, but he was not on that street.