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“WE SMELL LIKE SIMPLE folk,” Tali said.
“Eh?” Padg said.
“You heard.”
“But we are simple folk,” Dun said.
“Which will simply get us robbed,” Tali said.
“Or worse,” Padg said.
“Okay, point taken.”
So they found themselves in the rather rough-hewn wear of the Lakeside folk, including some rather interesting lace-up leg greaves that seemed to be in fashion. Tali found the attentions of the aging proprietor of the shop they’d found rather creepy, but she bit her tongue for the sake of the party, making minimal fuss. Once in the street again, they headed toward the main noise of the town, down a wide main street lined with ramshackle dwellings.
“I may need to scrub myself,” Tali said.
Dun said, “They don’t smell that bad, a bit of oil-skin maybe, but...”
“Not the clothes you idiot!” she snapped.
“Oh, sorry... him.”
“Yes, him, paws all over me. ‘Oh, let me just check this fits properly there, and let me adjust that here.’ Gah! When this is all over, I’ll remember to come back and adjust him.”
“You did nearly have his finger off tying up that last lace,” Padg noted.
“I think the best revenge we can take is never to come back here again,” Dun said.
“Or you could melt his legs together with some of that Alchemy stuff,” Padg said.
“Yes, that would work too,” Dun said, cheerily.
“When I want an opinion from either of you two idiot-folk, I’ll be sure and ask for it.”
“And I wasn’t.”
Dun swallowed a giggle at Padg’s revenge plans, for fear of retribution and they padded on toward the Throng. They noticed as they walked, that the dwellings either side of them had noises from way up high, as well as at street level. None of the other folk that Dun had any knowledge of built dwellings other than on the ground. Seemed like an odd thing to do in the Dark. There was always another tunnel you could annex, or in some cases a trapdoor to go down, but these smelled like reed and mud dwellings like the ones in the village back home. Sure the Stone-folk had raised walkways, but even all of their cave dens were at floor level. Dun found the enshrouding noise oppressive. Or maybe it was the fact that everyone here seemed to be having some kind of grudge with the other. At varying levels of threat and volume. Dun could imagine how Lakeside had earned its infamy.
The Throng became a wall of noise, long before they got to it, but oddly a wall where each brick was a different texture to the next. As a whole, the soundscape of the market was a cacophony, but each component had its own madly unique edge: brazen rough-edged singing, a barely audible high-pitched trilling, scores of resonant clicker beetles, the schiwng-swish noise of metal being sharpened, and distant mournful ululation. As they approached, the air became thicker with the breath of hundreds of hawkers, the pushy, the wheedling, the desperate, all plying their trade. “Come buy...” this, “Never known before...” that, and “How could you possibly survive without...” those.
“This is fantastic,” Padg whispered into Dun’s ear, so as not to be overheard. A precaution, probably not necessary under the circumstances.
“It’s making my head ache already, and we’ve not been here two hundred clicks yet,” Dun said.
“Well, I’d rather be here than in that clothes shop,” Tali said. “It might be an eel-pool, but at least we all know what we’re getting ourselves into. Everyone is clearly out for what they can get, they’re going to try and con you, but at least we’re all aware of that. Seems more, honest, somehow.”
“Now there’s a word I wasn’t expecting to hear today,” Dun said.
“Or at least not in that context,” Padg said. “Maybe, ‘Nah, mate, I wasn’t trying to rob you, honest.’”
“You two could be less amusing and more helpful by listening out for the Bocado,” Tali said.
They walked and listened and listened and walked. Even Dun starting to enjoy what was quite an experience and for once, one that didn’t seem to be utterly life-threatening. They braved some snacks from a vendor, a spice-dried version of the fish they’d enjoyed in the lake. And, Tali seemed to think, they didn’t get stung too badly in the bartering of it. Padg and Tali both came away from a weapons hawker with matching small, found metal knives, very sharp. They spent a brief moment in a small space between two stalls, admiring their purchases, when there was a loud squeaky crash, a dusty thump, and loud squeaky cursing.
“If you ever come near my bar again, you miserable, scum-eating, misbegotten, folk-toad, I swear on all the gods that I will rip off a hind leg as you flee and use it to beat your sorry carcass into jelly!”
The voice was loud, harsh, and carried a long way, without the need to shout. The level of threat in the words, however, was apparent. The squeaky cursing came from a position lower down near the floor and was interspersed with spitting.
“I think we’ve found the Bocado,” Padg said.
