by Eve Forward
“And their plans?” asked Fenwick.
“Yes, we must know of those as well.” He sighed a sigh of regret. “Though it pains me, the necessity is there, and it is the most peaceful way. We shall need an agent, Fenwick ...”
“I volunteer, sir.” Fenwick stepped forward proudly.
Smiling apologetically, Mizzamir shook his silver-maned head.
“Of course you do, Sir Fenwick, but I am afraid your face and fame would reveal you to their cunning villainy. We need someone who is not so pure that the light would reveal itself to these villains, yet not dark, of course, else how could we deal with him, how could we trust him? We need someone who will be our agent, but not obviously so ... can you find me such a one, Fenwick?”
Fenwick drew himself up nobly. “I will do my best, arch-mage.”
Mizzamir smiled, pleased. “Good, lad. Very good.”
The three rode on across the hills. A road going the same way could be seen winding in the distance to their left, but they did not dare to take it... wanted for theft, jailbreaking, attempted murder ... Maybe Mizzamir was right, thought Arcie. It is a hard life, it does involve a lot of running away ... but I wouldn’t trade it for all the security in the world. Rather a free and hungry hawk than a stuffed and caged turkey. But caution was an important part of that life. With a subtle gesture Arcie indicated to Sam to drop back a bit, letting the Druid move ahead. Sam and Arcie walked their mounts side by side and spoke in the silent tongue of those who prowl the alleyways at night. It was a language taught by both the rival Guilds, but had many gestures used by both, so that they could understand each other. An observer watching them would have seen only slight gestures of body and fingers and facial expression, would not even have heard the few softly muttered monosyllabic words.
“Her there not normal,” implied Arcie. Sam looked at the red-haired figure on the stag, then back at Arcie.
“No, but she understand. I trust for now,” insinuated the assassin. Arcie let exasperation creep into his gestures.
“You trust anything in skirt? You hear her talk. She talk of old like she there.”
“So? She want to kill us, she do while I sleep, set cat on you all food-sleepy. Didn’t,” he added pointedly.
“But why she help us?”
“She believe what she say,” Sam shrugged.
“Come on there, you two. We have a long way to go,” called Kaylana. The two spurred their mounts and rode to catch up. A raven blinked a bright eye at them from a treetop and glided after them.
The day was warm and bright as they rode along and the sun slowly followed them across the sky. The hills were extremely grassy and thick with wildflowers, buttercups, daisies, and lots of little red and blue and purple blooms that Sam couldn’t identify. The influx of positive power did indeed seem to be having its effect on the land.
Sam realized with a start that it was already the autumn of the year; he didn’t know much about when flowers and things grew, but he had a hunch that they weren’t supposed to be doing it now. He hadn’t noticed before, living in the heart of the city; the increasingly mild winters for the past several years had just represented a savings in heating fuel.
They stopped at noon, had a short lunch of bread dipped in the cold leftover stew, and then continued. The grass began to be interspersed with trees and bushes, often arching over strange, overgrown ditches in the earth that made no sense for drainage. Puzzled, Sam pointed them out to Arcie, who agreed that they were odd, but he didn’t know what they were. Kaylana heard them talking and told them that these hills had been the site of one of the great battles before the Victory. The gouges had been made by the wheels of great war machines and the fighting and dying of men and horses.
Arcie was intrigued.
“I’m going to ride ahead, just a short ways, to be sure there bein’t any pitfalls or like,” he called back over his shoulder as he took the lead. Sam shook his head and looked at Kaylana.
“He means he’s going to go ahead and see if the ancient warriors left anything around worth picking up, like magic daggers or somesuch.”
Kaylana looked puzzled. “But the wars were many many years ago. Any such things would be beneath the soil by now.”
“That won’t stop him,” Sam sighed. He looked at the trees putting out wide green leaves that turned in the sun and heard the birdsong. Violets clustered in the shade, and bluebells trembled in the sunshine. Waving innocently among a riot of flowers along a hedgerow he spotted an old friend and patted the white florets atop the tall spotted stalks as he rode past. Good old shamlock, or sagebane, ingestive toxin class four, crush well and render juice, distill through Mufwort’s process for maximum potency.
A squadron of bright yellow butterflies flashed up from his horse’s hooves, and he watched them go dancing and spinning among the leaves like a lost contingent of autumn aspens. Somewhere, a bird called a liquid, two-toned note, then fell silent. He turned, and saw Kaylana watching him.
“I thought that assassins took pleasure only in blood and darkness and death, and had no concept of beauty,” she said with a hint of humor in her deep eyes. Sam turned away.
“There’s beauty in many things. The balance of good blade, a well-executed plan of attack ... But you don’t have to be a whitewash or a Druid to admire a place like this. There is color, and grace, and pleasing lines. There is music, which bridges the dark and the light. Sometimes it hurts us, but we know beauty when we see it.” He glanced at her, then looked away. He was about to speak again when Arcie’s voice echoed down from the top of the next hill.
“Ho, you two, come along! Ye can see the next town from here!” They crested the hill and looked down into the valley to see the dark smudge of buildings on the banks of a river. As they watched, the sun dipped behind the mountains, and the valley darkened. Lights in the buildings twinkled in the twilight and on the outskirts of the city walls they could just glimpse the dark orange-red flicker of campfires. Kaylana indicated them with the point of her staff.
“Gypsies,” she said. “We will need ... what do you call it? Money.”
As they stared down into the valley, a raven that had been sitting in a tree just behind them gave a satisfied croak and took to the air, winging over their heads and down into the city.
Kaylana slid off her stag and rubbed its muzzle gently, then with a shooing motion sent it bounding back into the cover of the trees. Sam debated a long moment, then after some inner wrestling dismounted as well and silently offered Kaylana his horse, which, after some thought on the ride, he had named Damazcus, after the wavy-patterned Shadrezarian steel that was so good for dagger blades.
“I do not need to ride. You are injured and need it more than I,” was her calm reply.
Sam waved irritably at Damazcus. The horse took the opportunity to rub its itching forehead on his shoulder, almost knocking him over, then snorted moistly into his hair. He wiped his cheek off in disgust. “You are of course correct, but I’m not walking into that town and have everyone seeing me sitting pretty while a lady walks through the mud. Nothing points out a bad character like lack of chivalry. Half-pint is excused because we’d leave him behind if he wasn’t riding.” Arcie grinned and tipped his hat at mention of his nickname, one of the few comments about his height he had come to tolerate. “So get on, or I will start to get cross and ill-tempered as my nature is so famous for.”
Kaylana looked sternly at him. “I will not be treated like some delicate noblewoman. I am Kaylana, and by Oak, Ash and Thorn, I will not let a scamp like you ...”
“I’ve been kicking around for thirty-some summers, ma’am,” replied Sam tersely. Kaylana drew herself up haughtily and rapped her staff on the ground. Arcie drummed his fingers on his saddlehorn impatiently, and the horse in question sighed.
“And I have seen times and places you will never...”
Her sentence was cut short as Sam sighed, and in one lightning motion scooped her up off the ground, staff and all, and tossed her int
o the horse’s saddle. She glared furiously down at him, too outraged to speak. He looked back at her tiredly. “All right. Do it as a favor to me, then? I don’t want to get hounded in this town any more than I will anyway, and I’m tired of standing on this hill arguing.” He started walking down the slope. Arcie followed, and after fuming in silence a moment, so did the Druid.
As they approached the gates, it was Arcie who spoke first. “You said we’d need money? How much, and what for?”
“For the Gypsies,” said Kaylana, a bit sulkily, Arcie thought. “They travel the wide world over and will know of the state of things in towns and cities. Thus we may discover how far the domination of Light has progressed, and where its weak spots may be, that we can begin to undermine and with luck turn the tide back to balance. But the information of Gypsies is not free ... I imagine we will need the worth of three horses to pay them, but you will need the horses. So somehow we must get the money another way.”
“Horses,” mused Arcie, “average about forty gold, say ... three of us, then. We each need to come up with forty gold tellins.” He grinned. “No problem!”
Sam thought a moment. Of course the Barigan could; he probably was carrying at least ten times that much anyway. On a sudden thought, he checked his pocket where he’d tucked Arcie’s deposit. It was gone, of course.
Sam decided not to press the issue now: they were almost to the gates. But later ... and Sam would collect in full when he could hand Mizzamir’s bloody twitching head to Arcie. At the moment, Sam was broke, but he knew a trick or two himself. “I can do it.” The two rogues looked at the Druid.
Kaylana looked back at them haughtily. “Good.”
“Spiffyweh,” the Barigan said, rubbing his hands together gleefully as they rode through the open gates (unguarded, as was so common in these peaceful times).
“We’ll split up then, and meet back at yon inn over there.” He indicated a swinging tavern sign. “I’ve got wee bit of spare change already on me, as it just happens ... I’ll find a place to stable the horses.”
“We’ll go with you, old chum, just to be sure you find one so that you don’t have to take them to another town, or sell them, or something,” said Sam pleasantly.
“Och, they’re my horses! I did stole them fair and ... mmmph!” Arcie exclaimed loudly, then sputtered as Sam reached up and clapped a hand over his mouth. A few townsfolk, wandering about and chatting pleasantly, watched them curiously and laughed. They found stabling for Damazcus and the pony, which Arcie had taken to calling Puddock, then they set out on their separate ways.
Arcie walked cheerfully through the warm early evening.
He stopped to pass the time of day idly with a Barigan greengrocer. He wandered down into what must have been the bad side of the town, all undergoing renewal and renovation. His trained eyes spotted thief signs here and there, faded with age and painted over in a few places. One series of marks led him to what must have been the local Guild. Most of the larger towns had a Guild of some size, though the thieves of a few looser cities ran instead in competing gangs. Assassin’s Guilds were far rarer. Sam’s had been the only one he’d known of in the Six Lands. The Thieves’ Guild here in Mertensia was disguised of course, in this case as a bakery. His own Guild had run under the cheerful cover of a milliner’s shop, before all his members had left and he’d had to scrape his losses together and turn everything into easily portable items. At any rate, might as well see if rise and shine baked goods had done any better. He wandered in.
A small bell announced his arrival, and the aroma of warm bread drifted around him.
Kaylana was in difficulties. She put on a brave front, but she hated cities. The cobblestones were rough under her feet, and the air was smoky and hard to breathe. Eyes stared at her, in her homespun armor and dun robes, but she would not look at them. The eyes made her feel itchy, tense, panicky. She had to stop at the small park in the center of town to try to recover herself. She sat on the small patch of grass and waited until she stopped shaking.
How long since she’d been in a city? Many, many seasons ... last time she had stepped foot inside a large town such as this, she had sat in an alleyway and watched with burning eyes as a huge crowd roared the praises of the Heroes. She knew little of them, or of what they had done, only of the results. She had seen them then; a warrior, a wizard, a healer, a scout, a woodsman, and a knight in silver armor. News of the Victory had spread to all corners of the world, and the people laughed and wept for joy wherever the Heroes appeared. Time had gone on, there were other, local, heroes. The original Heroes, and those who had fought on their side but not gained quite the fame, settled down and took up the burden of repairing the war-torn land. Many of their children went on to become heroes as well. But the swallows had not brought any news of heroes for many months, reflected Kaylana.
Perhaps the heroes were running out of heroic things to do.
Kaylana didn’t like this. She didn’t like trusting either the short fellow or his impertinent tall friend, especially if it led her to cities like this one. But she had no choice.
How far they trusted her, she was still not certain. They’d come this far, true, but would it be as the others had said, that they would not work, would squabble over meaningless things rather than do what must be done, whatever it was? “Come away, young one,” her kinsmen had said to her, the last ones, on the day of the Victory. “You can do nothing here.” The spirits of her past, dancing in the trees. She had turned away, refused, and had gone back to her woods, vowing that she must do something. With the death of the other Druids her powers had increased little by little, as their dying spirits passed strength to her that she might survive. Her body had transformed so that she hardly seemed to age from that day onward ... but she had realized long ago that she would have rather died when they did. She watched, in bitter sorrow, as the world tilted to its inevitable searing end in white light, unable to do anything but wait. Following her instincts, learning to control her strange gifts and knowledge, waiting, doing what she could, here and there. Until these two had appeared. She had met the two men and had not been surprised to hear they were of darkness. Now, she led them where her instincts led her, where strange dreams of past and future guided her. But though her voice was strong as her will, and her powers and instincts and eerie inner wisdom were those of a thousand longdead Druids, her mind sometimes shivered in fear like a young girl’s-a girl who had seen all she ever knew and loved cut down in blood while she hid trembling in the hollow of an old oak tree.
Sam wandered about in the increasing twilight. He thought he glimpsed Kaylana striding past in the distance, but didn’t do anything about it. Fair. was fair, they all had to earn their own money.
“What am I doing here, anyway?” he asked himself.
“I’m no hero. Let the world blow itself up. It’s its own fault.” But he knew. He, and he was sure Arcie felt the same, would much have preferred to hide, lay low somewhere until the problem had passed on. But when the whole world is in danger, where is there to hide? He believed Kaylana, with the inner sense that had saved his life many times before. Besides, she’d spoken of corrupting the world. Well, she was right, it needed it. He’d do it out of spite, dammit, that was a perfectly dark reason.
Spite and sheer evil nastiness, you big bad assassin, he said to himself. He skulked off among the shadows with an evil leer on his face, his golden hair somewhat spoiling the effect by shining in the torchlight every now and again.
Across town, Arcie was getting frustrated.
“Look, can ye bake me a cake with a file in it?” he asked, giving the portly man behind the roll-strewn counter his best If-you-know-what-I-mean look.
“A file, sir?” asked the baker, perplexed. Arcie tried again.
“This all looks so good, I could steal it, man,” he offered, searching the man’s face for some kind of acknowledgment that the baker was a fellow sneakthief. He encountered only bovine confusion.
“We’ve the
best prices in town, sir ... “
Arcie looked around, saw there was only one other customer in the shop, who was about to leave. He glanced again at the baker, and said, “Look, I ... run the Bonny Bonnets Shoppe in Bistort.” Most Thieves’ Guilds knew of each other’s existences and covers, simply because one needed to obtain a license to thieve in another Guild’s territory anyway and it was impossible to keep out spies in the process.
“That’s nice for you, sir. Now then, do you wish to buy anything or not? My shop closes soon.” Arcie Stared at him.
“This really are a bakery?” he whispered. The man nodded, obviously thinking the short foreigner was quite mad. Arcie sighed. “Well enough. A dozen jelly doughnuts, please.”
Arcie walked down the street, trailing powdered sugar.
The sounds of drunken singing reached his ears, and with a shrug he ducked into the shadows of an alleyway and waited. A group of three young merchants’ sons staggered past, passing a skin of wine between them. Arcie paced them silently down the alley, now soft as a shadow at their side, now a silent padding behind them, now a drifting breeze on the other side, lastly a swirl of vague form that melted into the shadow of a building and was gone like a dream, leaving only a small sprinkling of white sugar behind.
The youths emerged at the other end of the alley and slowed in muddled surprise, their song of revelry drifting away. Not only was the wineskin gone, which was what had alerted them, but so were their belts, pouches, rings, necklaces, ornamental rapiers and lefthand Kwartan daggers, the eldest one’s feathered cap, and the youngest one’s brand-new silver spurs. They turned and peered down the alley, but it was empty.
Elsewhere, Kaylana sighed, and decided to take care of the unpleasant business of gathering money. She was of course not skilled in theft and had nothing to sell and no services to trade, so she would simply have to ask for the forty tellins. She was glad the Barigan had figured out the exchange and the currency used; the last time she’d seen money it was a handful of rough bronze lozenges with the face of an ancient ruler stamped into them. She knew what to ask for. The trick was asking in a certain way.