Free Angels at the Gate by T. K. Thorne Page B

care as companions and hunters. I just do not know her signals or the words she knows. I was delighted to find slapping my thigh brings her to my side … most of the time. She is alert to everything, but stays beside me if I signal her thus, unless a creature needing chasing dashes by. Then she has as much trouble with obedience as I. But, otherwise, if I stand still, she stands beside me, and if I walk or even run, she matches my pace with delight. The faster we go, the happier she is.
    I suppose we make a sight together, the lanky boy and attached desert dog. Several of the street vendors nod and wave at us, in a good mood because of the flux of people—and thus business—arriving for the Spring Rites. One even slips me a treat, a meat stick, which I share with Nami. With great care, she takes the offered morsels from my sticky fingers.
    Then I begin my duty to find bargains for trade. The cloth vendors are my favorite stops. Although I do not have skill with weaving, I know a fine work from a sloppy one and can tell where almost any cloth originates from the texture, dyes, and knotting.
    I eye the ruins of several buildings that have partially collapsed and wonder what caused such, and why they are not repaired. Sodom is not a sophisticated city, not like Ur or Babylon or the Egyptian port cities where rare items are to be found—ingots of gold, tin, or even cobalt blue glass, tortoiseshell jewelry, and elephant or hippopotamus ivory. I love the port cities—the smell of the sea and exotic spices. Here in Sodom, the displays are mostly locally grown food, weapons and pottery, although there is one vendor who has a few pieces of nice ebony from Egypt. Since we are headed there, I am not tempted. The main source of wealth for Sodom is the pitch which we are prepared to transport. Pitch, as Lot explained to Mika and Raph, is harvested from the sea where the water cools it into a gooey mass, but it also oozes up through the ground. The primary hazard of night travel from the city is not predators, but the likelihood of stumbling into a pit of pitch or one of the old grave-shafts, if you do not stay to the paths.
    I stop to watch a potter folding the edges of what is to be a small oil pot, admiring his skill. I do not have such a skill, though I have a good eye for what is well made, be it pottery, metal, or weavings.
    At the far end of the main street, near the city wall, I skirt a row of large jars of pitch and stop at a cloth merchant’s shop. It appears to be a house as well as a shop. I give only a cursory glance to the pieces stackedoutside. The least-worthy items are usually displayed there to minimize any loss by a snatching thief.
    I signal for Nami to stay outside and wait for me. She appears willing to do so, at least as long as I don’t tie her and leave her for long. Inside, I let my fingers choose what to study. They stop on a fine piece and only then do I look at it. It is a small rug in deep reds and blues. I pull it from its heap of fellows and take it out to the daylight with another mediocre piece to study. The owner steps out with me. A shaft of light angling over the stone wall reflects off a tiny silver ring that curves through his left nostril.
    â€œYou have an eye, boy,” he says, cocking his head at me.
    Once my gaze rests on him, it is captured by the strange travel of his left hand across his body. His fingers draw up his chest, through his oily beard and along the side of his face to touch the top of his balding head before starting the cycle again. He seems unaware of the ceaseless tide of his hand, but it is distracting. “You know your weave,” he says. “Finest pieces I have.”
    Of course he would have said that about anything a customer chose, but I have no doubt for the one piece, he is correct. The double knot weave and pattern identify it as originating from the north, where young girls weave their family pattern into dowry rugs. The dyes are