Sandstorm by Christopher Rowe Page B

be too scandalized if you ever make it to a seaport and hear her own priests call her the Bitch Queen.”
    Cephas risked a sip from the cup. The tincture was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He was too distracted by the sensation to respond to Corvus.
    “Heritage, lineage,” Corvus continued. “Yes, they are close to the same thing. But lineage speaks to direct ancestry, as in your story, when Umberlee reveals to Kassam that he is the son of the pasha. Heritage is more general—it has to do with the gifts all men are given by the circumstances of their birth. Tobin’s great strength, for example, is his heritage as a goliath. Part of my heritage”—Cephas looked up from the cup, because the voice he heard was that of the gigantic clown—“is my talent for imitating voices.” The liquid tones Corvus used earlier in the conversation returned. “The music you hear from the ground, the way you can interact with the earth. Along with the golden bands on your skin, that’s part of your heritage as a genasi. An earthsouled genasi, in particular.”
    Cephas absorbed this, recalling that the kenku used that word for him in welcome, and recalling something else, besides.
    “She was lying, though,” Cephas said.
    Corvus cocked his head again, in the other direction. “Who was lying, Cephas?”
    “The stern woman, your Umberlee Bitch Queen. She told Kassam the Fisherman that he was Pasha Mujen’s son, but it was a trick. When he went to the court to claim his inheritance, the pasha’s vizar whipped him all the way back to the docks, and the blood from his wounds turned the waters of the bay red. That’s what the stern woman wanted—Kassam’s blood for her scheme to drive the fish away from the pasha’s waters.”
    “I’m sure you’ve found that real life does not always follow the way of the stories,” Corvus said. Shouts sounded from outside the wagon. “The twins have returned,” he said. “Let’s see if Tobin and the roustabouts have fixed you a place by the campfire yet.”

    By “a place,” Corvus meant a wooden platform that, while clearly assembled with some haste, looked much like the boardwalks and low tables to which the Calishites confined him. Unlike those on Jazeerijah, this one was piled high with pillows and cushions. And while many of the men and women gathered around the bonfire were armed, they all greeted Cephas with broad smiles and calls of “Well met!” and “Welcome!”
    Cephas was about to step down from the back of Corvus’s wagon when Tobin appeared at his side. “Here now, Cephas,” said the goliath. “Let’s not have you falling again. Corvus says you must be careful of the ground until you learn to sing back to it.” With that, Tobin picked Cephas up, took two long strides across the camp, and dropped him among the pillows on the fireside platform.
    The phrase “a bit calmer than usual” did not begin to describe Cephas’s ease of mind after drinking the tincture. He had not even flinched when Tobin hoisted him over his shoulder. Through the pleasant haze he thought, Drink nothing else the kenku offers.
    Most of the people in the firelight were humans, with a few in the number who might have benefitted from some of Grinta’s kin in their “heritage.” One by one, they approached as Tobin introduced them. Cephas was too used to avoiding even the appearance of friendship with anyone other than Grinta to do more than nod in response. He hoped that the few names he’d managed to learn already would serve him for at least a little while longer.
    Two such came into his hearing. “And here are Shan and Cynda, whom you met in the canyon, yes?” said Tobin. “But they are more than just adventurers, see? They are aerialists.”
    Cephas remembered Tobin’s talk of the twins and their wire. “Your fighting technique,” he said to the women, “it uses garrotes?”
    The sister with the shorter hair—Shan?—gave him a confused look and walked over to join