here wasn’t much to see out the windows.
He held the missive in his lap, the seal broken, the envelope nesting in the loose folds of his scarf. Even through the thick leather and fleece of his gloves, his fingers ached; they’d ached in Kzecka and they’d ached since. He was used to the bracing air by now, the cold sharpness of it in and out of his lungs. He was still out of breath from the mooring mast to the coach: the air was heavier down here, he found, even after a week. Even still halfway up the Spondolas.
The presence of a foreigner here is unusual, especially one of your rank, and news of your arrival has spread. While we have some accommodations for outsiders, you are likely to find Hoxian hospitality as cold and thin as the air in our mountain city.
The sky was a thicket of white; the air was cutting. It was already beginning to cloud, to fill with little whirls of white. He knew well enough by now – well enough to know what it portended. There was a sore pit in his throat, and he didn’t know if it was the cold or the air pressure or the feeling that was beginning to worm its way up from his belly as Frecks slid by blindly past the coach window curtains.
He’d little time in Frecks. The coach skirted the outside, and he got the barest glimpses of it out the windows, in-between staring down at the curling script and blowing warm breath into his gloved hands.
They were speaking of the storm by the time he reached Frecks, dizzy and tired and sleepless. They’d offered him lodging at the U’kzchk: a fine, warm, well-appointed hall just outside the mooring masts. They all spoke fluent Estuan here, and he was used to the stares by now, rendered strangely devoid of giggles – or anything like them – by the demands of rhakor. He’d been on the verge of shelling out the sujen for a room ‘til the storms blew over and it was safe to fly again. The quiet, matter-of-fact messenger came then, with his indectal static field, bearing the plain crisp envelope.
He had opened it, and he was still looking at it with faint surprise.
Jaydr Ecks
What surprise he could muster up, anyway. Underneath his Hoxian fur coat, he was wearing the robes they’d given him in Kzecka; all his Anaxi clothes were packed away, and he’d barely had time to get the luggage to the coach, shaking and with the help of a handful of other galdori. The weeks’ stubble was still all over his face, long enough now it was like a dusting of curly coppery snow.
There’d been no mirrors, but he was certain he looked like shit. He didn’t look much the part of an Anaxi incumbent, anyway. All the same, being honest, he didn’t know how concerned he was with disappointing this Jaydr Ecks.
Ecks, he mouthed, peering down. Ecks.
If there was a shiver of leiraflesh across his skin at the name, he quashed it; he’d met Ecks aplenty since he’d come to Hox. One of the aeroship attendants to Frecks had been an Ecks. He put it out of his mind, though he ran a gloved thumb over the curling ink.
He knew it when they passed into the shadow of it. His hip already ached; more than anything, he loathed the idea of putting his weight on it.
When the carriage finally rattled to a halt, it was a time before he emerged.
The quiet, terse driver got out finally to help him; the thick-feathered, tougher-scaled osta were scratching at the icy stones underneath their coverings, flapping long tails. “Thank you,” he rasped as he steadied himself in his boots.
“Do you need anything else, Incumbent?”
For a moment, the sight stole the breath he’d’ve used to respond.
Ecks’ house was cut into the side of the mountain. They were far enough from the city that the path behind wound into the thickening snow, and even now, he couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from it. Even now, as the rest of the mountain was blurring into the night sky, and all of him ached to get inside before the night got even colder.
It was little enough like the temples in Kzecka. It wasn’t a temple at all; it was plainer in some ways and grander in others. Grand in its blunt brutality and its artfulness both, and somehow smaller than he’d expected, smaller than a wealthy Anaxi’s mansion. It was all harsh-cut planes, standing strength. There were a few shapes of rooms outside the mountain, but they melted easily in.
He’d been in Hox long enough to know not to expect servants to come spilling out, not like in Anaxas. “Wait here a little, Rhek-vumash, please.” He smiled wanly over and down at the driver. “It shouldn’t be long, but I’ll need their help getting my bags.”
The man nodded, with a last uncertain glance at the Ecks house.
There were warm lights spilling out of the windows. He took what he could of his luggage - a big, soft bag under his arm, and his satchel of books. He moved up the walk to the front doors, his hands tucked back deep into his fur coat, and tried to take a deep breath through the cutting cold air.