Here is a sample from "Lords of Tsámra"
"If you'd rather, we have other..." The slim, grey-haired gentleman gestured with one delicate hand. His fingertips were dyed dark blue, and scarlet and indigo tattoos ran up his arms to disappear into the dagged sleeves of his saffron tunic. The tattoos were neither numerous nor complex enough to mark him as a nobleman, but neither were they the crude patterns of a slave or peasant. He was thus probably a member of a minor lineage within a high clan - or perhaps a foreigner, or a chamberlain who had risen high in his master's service.
The other man stepped smartly into the cavernous warehouse. He was slender, too, but there was no elegance about him. He exuded energy like a beetle trapped in a pot. He turned his black-masked head from side to side, giving an impression of bird-like, purposeful wariness. He wore a simple white kilt and high-laced travelling boots, yet no one could mistake him for a commoner. He spared one glance for the mud-brick walls, the overhead beams, massive as a giant's arms, and the dim recesses of the loft overhead, then glided forward to peer at the tumbled, naked bodies that littered the straw-littered floor.
The masked man used the toe of one metal-shod boot to lift the arm of one of the corpses on the floor: a dark, swarthy human male with coppery-gold skin. The hands were waxen pale, the clutching fingers almost white.
"This will do."
"And payment, Lord?"
The other replied with a curt dip of his glossy-beaked mask but made no further reply.
"Sire?" the grey-haired man persisted.
"My people will contact you."
The older man rubbed dubiously at a cheek covered with blue arabesques and traceries. "Great one... "
"What do you require, then?" the other snapped. "I am too old to lug golden ingots about with me."
"A writ, then?" The tone was diffident, obsequious.
"Patience, and you shall be paid."
"That - ah - presents difficulties, Lord. My master-"
"Is your master a clanless serf to doubt me!" Anger swirled, thinly disguised, beneath the mask.
"Ah, no, Lord!" The other shook his silvery head in a mixture of reproach, regret, and servility. Agents of the mighty often displayed greater arrogance than their betters.
"Courtesy! Of course." The other made a frustrated gesture as though to remove the close-fitting mask, then thought better of it. "Yes. Of course. Courtesy. Pardon."
There were ways and ways to deal with rudeness. This might be a shop of sorts, but it was no common market stall, and the grey-haired man was no menial shopboy. The masked man bowed and prepared to reply, but one of the bodies sprawled on the straw chose that moment to stir, groan, and cough.
The older man clapped his hands, and a small, four-legged being appeared from the shadows: a Tinalíya, one of the nonhuman races of Livyánu. This creature's arms were like two strings of horn-shelled, brownish beads, and it bore a stout metal bar in its claws. They heard the crunch of a blow, and the groaning ceased.
"So there are problems?" the masked man complained. "It does not always work?"
"It never fails! Some take a little longer to - ah - pass on to the Isles - than others."
"If any survive, there will be repercussions. It will not be acceptable."
"Sire! I assure you... !" The shopkeeper bobbed up and down, once, twice, thrice. "Here - " he withdrew a silver flask and tiny goblets from his belt-sash, poured two measures of clear, golden liqueur, and proffered one to his companion. The other he drank himself, saying, "As promised, high one: an antidote, as a precaution - and to seal the bargain."
The customer gulped down the draught through a hidden aperture in his mask, turning his head this way and that, like a watchful bird.
Sunlight glinted through chinks in the high, hazy ceiling, dappling the contorted arms and legs on the warehouse floor below. Dust motes hung like wraiths in the air. All was tranquil. It was mid-morning, hot and steamy, and the mask was stuffy and smelled faintly of sweat.
At length the masked man said, "I accept your word. We are agreed, then." "Ah... Could you at least pay now for the slaves...?" The merchant waved a blue-dyed finger. He did not look at the bodies.
The corpses were indelicate: staring eyes, open mouths, lips twisted in the rictus of death, penises, triangles of pubic hair, breasts, toes, and clawed fingers, greedy for life. He had seen worse, of course, during the years he had served in this establishment These bodies bore no scars, no marks, nothing but the waxy white texture of the extremities to show the touch of Death.
Still...
"Payment will come, I told you." The mask trembled slightly. He fumbled a round metal disc from a pouch at his belt. "See, then. I am the Fifth of Fourteen."
The effect was immediate. The grey-haired man bowed even lower than before, made a symbol in the air with his fingers, and sucked in breath. "I never doubted, Lord."
"Arrange the details." The masked man replaced the medallion and turned away.
More of the little, russet-hued Tinalíya servitors scuttled forth on legs like strings of beads. They dragged sledges upon which they swiftly loaded the fifty or so corpses that littered the warehouse floor.
It would be a full afternoon's labour. The grey-haired gentleman waited only to see that the task was fairly begun; then he, too, strode away.
