by Victor Milán
The shrouded body of Father Pelletyr lay in the gutter a block away. The bearers hired from the Smiling Centaur had fled as the distraught mother's first cries reached them, knowing they meant darklings were about.
"We'll make no rapid going," Farlorn said. "The good Father's taste for good living has made him in death less bearable."
Shield of Innocence sheathed his swords and drew his cowl back over his head again. Then he walked back to the white bundle, stooped, and hoisted it over one broad shoulder.
"I shall carry the holy man," he said.
"So be it," Zaranda Star said; and so it was.
The chief cleric of the Order of Ilmater Brothers was a tall, gaunt man with a head shaped like a doorknob, a resemblance his surrounding fringe of gray hair did nothing to detract from. He still had sleep in his sunken, sad-looking gray eyes.
"So you have brought one of our own back to us," he intoned after the bundle had been deposited on a marble examining table in the healing chamber and the shroud was pulled back from Father Pelletyr's face.
"How did he die?"
"He died trying to prevent bloodshed, Excellency," Zaranda said, crossing her fingers behind her back. It wasn't actually a lie; the hapless father might have been trying to intervene when he keeled over. She couldn't know and chose to give her comrade the benefit of the doubt.
Examining the body, the cleric looked up beneath a bushy, upraised brow. "No need to call me 'excellency;' we are all humble brothers in Ilmater," he said. "He appears to have been stricken with an infarct to the myocardium. I see no signs of violence."
"Still, he was attempting to interpose himself between the combatants when death struck him down," said Zaranda, stretching the truth as far as it would go. It appeared to satisfy the archpriest, who nodded gravely.
"Long and well has our brother served Ilmater, and now the Crying God has called him home," he intoned.
Zaranda thrust a hand in her pouch and brought forth a handful of gems and rich broaches, sparkling in the light of the single lantern hung by a hook above the slab. "Here's what wealth I have remaining, Excel-ah, Father. I don't know whether it's enough to cover resurrection, but if not, perhaps we can make arrangements."
But the cleric shook his head. "Ah, my child, but you forget-" he began, wagging an admonitory finger.
"No terms on healing," Zaranda said, sagging. The gods of Toril were a cash-on-the-barrelhead lot. Given the uncertainty of fortune in that world, it was probably wise.
But the archpriest was still shaking his head. "Our brother Pelletyr forswore resurrection from death when he took our orders. He subjected his will to Ilmater's. Now Our Martyred Father has seen fit to call him home, and he has gone to stay."
"So be it," rumbled from the hooded hulk of Shield, who stood behind Zaranda. The cleric cast him a curious look, but said nothing.
Zaranda's eyes squeezed shut. Father Pelletyr had been neither the oldest nor the best of her friends, but he had been a comrade of unflagging loyalty and great heart. A single tear ran down her cheek.
He's the first of us claimed by the evil that lies upon Zazesspur, she thought irrationally but with profound conviction. How many more?
Out on the street before the chapter house, Farlorn paused with hands on hips and swelled his chest with a deep draught of night air. Because it was spring, the nights were cool, not sultry as they would be when summer arrived in the Empires of the Sands. Soft lantern light shone through stained glass that showed Il-mater's bound hands on a field of butter yellow and made colorful play on the back of his doublet.
"And there you have it," he declared. "Poor Father P. eschews resurrection in order to lend meaning to his eventual martyrdom. And then what befalls him? He pops an A. and dies a death entirely meaningless. Who says the Crying God has no sense of humor?"
Zaranda turned, frowning, toward him, intending to take him to task for his callousness. Instead, she found herself breaking into laughter that she quickly had to stifle, for fear of scandalizing the inhabitants of the chapter house.
"Life is a witch, and then you die," she said, giggling like a schoolgirl. "Now there's a fine Ilmaterish touch for you!"
And she thrust her elbows out from her sides, so that Stillhawk and Farlorn put their arms through hers, and walked away down the street with Shield following in silence. And once they were around the corner from the Ilmater chapter house, Zaranda let her laughter boom forth full throated.
Because if she could not laugh at Death, how could she face it when her time came?
That night in her bed Zaranda did not laugh.
She had engaged rooms at the Winsome Repose, an inn of good if not preeminent quality. She still had treasure of her own, though far from enough to cover her debts, and saw no reason to stint herself. Stillhawk and Shield were bedded down in the stables, where Goldie could speak to the other horses in words they understood and gentle them to the smell of the orog-and where Stillhawk could keep the mare from gambling with the grooms and cheating them, which was bound to draw undue attention. Zaranda had a chamber to herself, as, to his disgruntlement, did bard Farlorn.
Though the night had grown near-chill, she found herself unbearably hot, stiflingly hot, and could bear neither clothes nor covers. And as she tossed and sweated in a state that could be called sleep only because she was palpably not awake, it seemed to her that she heard the voices of lost children crying out to her, helpless and doomed, as black whips drove them in ranks toward black galleys, far below in the city's stone bowels.
And another voice spoke to her, whispering, at once infinitely repellent and infinitely seductive, saying:
Zaranda.
Join us.
Why fight it?
You know you shall come to us…
Soon.
10
"If you would know the source of your troubles," the amplified voice shouted, piping-shrill yet bearing authority, "look to the wealthy. It is because they are rich that you are poor!"
Outside the yellow brick smithy, a crowd roared approval. Artalos the armorer rubbed an oily hand on the front of his leathern apron, which was dotted with tiny char spots from the sparks that flew from his forge. They can go on like that for hours," he said with something resembling admiration. "There may be aught in what they say; I lack the wisdom to know. I do know that when they speak of the rich, they include artisans and craft-folk like me. And if I'm rich, why do I sweat the daylight hours away, and still fall short when it comes time to pay my bills? Not to mention the taxes the city council exacts, and the dues the syndics demand."
Zaranda went to stand in the doorway. It opened on a yard in which there stood an anvil, a quenching tub, and piles of rusting ironmongery ranging from old plowshares to broken swords. A gate stood open in the high wall, into the top of which were set old sword tips, points upward like the leaves of a hedge, which surrounded the smithy yard. Through it she could see a small figure standing on a nail keg in the bed of a wagon parked where two streets crossed, addressing a large, rough-dressed crowd.
"Does every madman in Zazesspur possess a speaking tube?" she asked.
"And an audience," Artalos agreed grimly. "So it is coming to pass."
"Who's our diminutive orator?"
The armorer came forward, scratching his grizzle-bristled chin with his right hand, which at the moment was a black iron hook that he used to grasp the handles of melting pots. He had quite an assortment of cleverly wrought implements he could substitute for his hand, which had gone missing to a Tuigan sword during the nomad invasion years before. Likewise, the smallest two fingers of his left hand were gone, though he had not bothered to replace those.
"That would be Toby, or to put it formally, Tobiworth Hedgeblossom, of the noted Hedgeblossom brothers."
"Noted?"
"Noted indeed. Toby and his brother Putomas- called Poot by the vulgar, which of course includes most of his followers-are among the foremost of our local rabble-rousers. They lead the Social Jus
tice League, which is among the foremost of our local rabbles."
"Rather in the fashion of Earl Ravenak?"
Artalos turned and spat with great accuracy into the open mouth of his forge, eliciting a hiss of steam. "Not quite. They don't preach outright murder-yet, though I fear their wild talk will lead them to that, inevitably, as rivers seek the sea. That carrion-breathed raver Ravenak not only preaches it-his minions practice it with a will."
He shrugged and went back inside. "Ill times have overtaken Zaz of late. Our own guild masters, the syndics, treat us more as chattel than craft-brothers-and I think we armorers and swordsmiths get off lightly since so many of us are veteran fighters and not to be imposed upon."
But will you act to defend your rights, any more than the weavers or soapmakers? Zaranda wondered. She forbore to ask since Artalos was an old comrade, and she wanted further information from him.
Feeling the need for more information as to how the land lay in Zazesspur, she had gone abroad to talk with some of her long-standing contacts. She did so alone. Shield of Innocence and Stillhawk remained in one another's care back at the Winsome Repose, since they would be uncomfortable and conspicuous among the Zaz throngs. Stillhawk yet hated the orog as a crow hates an owl, but he would neither harm Shield nor suffer harm to come to him unless the supposed paladin acted treacherously; such was Stillhawk's devotion to Zaranda.
Farlorn was off on business of his own. Since they were back in civilization and his sporadic attempts to resume matters with Zaranda had been rebuffed, said business probably entailed seducing human women, a passion with him almost as great as his love for music and strife. Zaranda was just as happy for lack of his company. He had been a friend for a long time, and a fine companion on the road, but sometimes his dual nature bore down heavily on him, making him difficult to be around.
Toby Hedgeblossom's impassioned rhetoric followed Zaranda and Artalos into the shadowed forge.
"Likely one or the other of the Hedgeblossoms will get himself elected, and then they'll lose interest in redistributing wealth, save into their own pockets," the armorer said, working a bellows with a treadle. The glare from the open forge changed from orange to yellow. "Meanwhile, have you heard the latest tidings? It's said that the city council is considering making it illegal to bear weapons larger than daggers within the city walls-unless, of course, you happen to belong to the civic guard, or are some councilman's personal bravo."
"Will the folk of Zazesspur stand for that?" Zaranda asked.
The armorer shrugged again. "Ill times beset us. If it wasn't for the cogs and caravels plying in and out of the harbor we'd be as poor as the country wretches. People are saying something must be done." He shook his head. "Why they think that means doing just anything will help, though, is more than my poor head can puzzle out."
"What of the darklings? Many speak of them as the greatest menace, yet you've not mentioned them."
"The darklings are a fell lot, no question, and I fear they are harbingers of worse times to come. Yet they prey mainly on the weak and unarmed. They fall readily enough to swords wielded with will and skill, so I am told."
"So much is true," Zaranda said.
He looked at her a moment under lowered brows and laughed. "So! I should've known the redoubtable Captain Star could not pass a night in Zazesspur without crossing swords with our local plague. You ever drew trouble to you like a lodestone!"
"Thank you so much for reminding me."
With his hook, he reached into the forge and drew forth a crucible of molten steel, glowing white. This he poured into a dagger mold.
"I don't doubt this civic guard could clean the devils out with one concerted push," he said as he poured, "if there were anything to them but swagger. Still-" he set the empty crucible aside "-the darklings pose little enough threat to us, so long as we're allowed to keep our swords."
Having learned as much as she felt she could, Zaranda bade her old comrade farewell. When she started out the gate, a symbol painted in the mouth of the alley caught her attention: a stylized eye with a brow slanting to meet it from above and two lines descending from it below.
"Artalos," she called. "A moment more of your time, if you will."
The armorer emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. "Always for you, Captain. What be your wish?"
"That sign there-you know it?"
He snorted. "Who does not know the dragon's-eye symbol of Nyadnar the Sorceress? Powerful she must be indeed to dare the wrath of those creatures by using such a sign. Yet you'd think so powerful a wizard would have better things to do than creep about the city scrawling on walls."
"Perhaps she doesn't do it herself."
"Who'd dare without her permission? I'd as lief scrawl Elminster's mark in a public urinal. Nyadnar's not his match, so it's said and so I believe; but there's something fell about her. I wonder if she's not a thing of evil, after all."
"She thinks herself above such concerns," Zaranda murmured. "So she's in residence currently?"
"In her house on Love Street," the armorer said with a nod, "or so it would seem. That mark was not there yesterday when the sun went down."
"Strange," Zaranda Star said, and took her leave.
From curiosity she wandered down Anvil Road to where it crossed Tinsmith Way, where the halfling firebrand addressed his followers from his wagonbed. Even here, in a predominantly grimy mechanical district, the upper floors where craftsfolk lived were alive with bright flowers in window boxes. The people of Tethyr, "wicked" Zazesspurians no less than the olive-growers and sheepherders of the countryside, loved their gardens.
The flowers' brisk beauty was not mirrored in the street, where most of Toby Hedgeblossom's hearers were roughly dressed. That was nothing uncommon in Zazesspur these days. What was uncommon in this crowd were the thick calluses of workingmen's hands and the colored-cloth brassards of the guilds. Hedge-blossom addressed his spiels to the laborer, but it mainly seemed idlers who were drawn by his promises of free wealth.
Perhaps, Zaranda thought, the real workers of Zazesspur realize who'd have to pay for Toby's schemes. But no; likely the real laborers were occupied at their labors. The lure of money for nothing was hard to resist; why, after all, did so many follow the hazardous but not particularly labor-intensive road of the adventurer?
She smiled a taut smile, sliding through the crowd and turning her hips this way and that to avoid brushing anybody in a suggestive way. You're going to start having cynical thoughts about yourself if you aren't careful, girl, she realized.
Something brushed her left hand. Pickpockets were as common as potholes in Zazesspur. Zaranda was always alert, and her senses and reflexes both were fine. She spun, clapping her hand to Crackletongue's hilt, thankful she secreted her coin at various strategic points of her person rather than leaving it to dangle from her belt like ripe fruit for the magpies.
A figure clad in a stained linen jerkin was moving purposefully but not hastily away from her. She could not pursue without jostling members of Hedgeblossom's audience, who were beginning to work themselves into an enthusiastic state. Nothing seemed missing; no point in giving chase-
Then she realized that, far from taking anything from her, the mysterious figure had slipped something into her hand, a papyrus scrap half-crumpled so that the coarse fibers were beginning to part. The words inked in it in a half-literate Common scrawl were legible enough: If you want get back whats yurs, look fer the one-arm man at the Carpet Mart tomorro, wun bell past daybrek.
She looked up sharply. The linen-clad man had vanished. Zaranda shrugged and stuffed the scrap in her belt. Separating herself from the mob-now being led in a chant of "share the wealth!" by Toby Hedgeblossom-she set out with long-legged strides down the Way, toward the Exotic Quarter.
The wizard's face was a twisted red mask glaring forth from white hair and disorder. "That's it," he said in a voice wound tight as a crossbow string. "Enough. Begone with you and your eerie pranks."
The girl
could barely see him through her tears of hurt and anger and the red-hair tangles that hung unwashed before her eyes. "It was an accident," she said. Her lower lip jutted in what looked like sullen defiance, but was more an attempt to hold back full-blown sobs.
His self-control snapped like a crystal goblet dropped on pavement from great height. "Accident?" he screeched. He flung out a skinny arm in a gesture that encompassed the wreckage of his shop and made his voluminous sleeve flap most alarmingly. "Accident! You summon up a whirlwind to devastate my shop, and try to pass it off as accident?"
The walls of her own control gave way. "But I can't help it!" she wailed through a sudden flood of tears. "I don't know how to control the magic. That's why I want to learn!"
"Magic? This is no magic! Did you speak an incantation?" He was so close to her now that his spittle blended with the tears, making shiny runnels down her cheek and further matting the ends of her hair. "No! Did you use spell components?" He scooped a pinch of spilled particolored powder from a bench whose marble-slab top had proven too massive to be toppled by the whirlwind.
He threw the powder in the air and blew on it. It puffed into a tiny cloud, then each mote became a brief bright spark of a different color that dispersed and drifted off into the gloom.
"No! One moment there was nothing but a thumb-fingered aspirant to be my apprentice making poor work of sweeping the floor. The next-chaos!" He shook his head. His gray hair stood out on both sides of his balding skull like dispirited static discharges. "This was no magic. Magic is orderly and disciplined. Magic is something learned, something labored for, something won."
He seized her by the elbow and marched her toward the door. "What you did wasn't magic. It was madness, or possession, or I-know-not-what. But it's not something I'll suffer near me!"
He threw open the door. From the afternoon street, the sunlight poured in like scalding water.
"Now get you gone," the magician declared, gripping the girl's arms both-handed to eject her. "And never let me see you again. Or I'll show you what magic really is ab-ouch!"