Imkesh

Origin

The line is attached to a merchant house remembered only as Jacobi, and no Imp now trading can say who Jacobi was or where the house stood. What survives of it is the name, the trade and the habit, and among a people who have held no ground for two thousand years that is more inheritance than most lines have.

Body

The dark band across the eyes is a thickening of the skin that cuts glare. An Imkesh can stand in an open market at noon with its eyes fully open while other Imps are squinting, watering and being taken for shifty, and that is the whole reason this line and no other holds the stalls. Everything else is ordinary Imp: the plump frame over the light bone, the long ears tuned to the low end, the green-yellow eye behind its reflective layer, and hair worn high and bright because an Imkesh is on display all day.

The hands are never still, which in a trade that is counted rather than stitched is a habit and not an anatomy.

Society

They run the stalls, hold the pawn, and fence what the rest of the quarter has lifted, and in most cities the Imkesh are the reason Imp theft settles into an institution rather than a crime wave: what is taken has somewhere to go. They also know what a thing is worth before its owner does.

Their custom is the count. An Imkesh counts what it is given twice, aloud, in front of the giver, and considers this good manners. Since a bandaged hand on an Imp is so ordinary that no city guard has ever thought to wonder what is under the cloth, and since the Imkesh have made a living out of exactly that, the count is also a statement about which of the two of you is being watched.