by Glen Cook
"Which would be?"
“To get a line on a witch and spy who calls herself Starkden."
Else was tempted by the notion that any enemy of the Brotherhood of War was a friend of Else Tage. Only this particular enemy of the Brotherhood had paid to have Else Tage murdered.
Else told his story almost exactly as it had happened — discounting some creative editing on behalf of Nahlik and Mallin.
"Those sailors you were sitting with. You didn't know them?"
"No. The soberest two knew each other but not the unconscious drunk, I'm pretty sure, even though they carried him away. He was there when I sat down. Those two didn't show up until a few minutes later."
"And their names were Ren and Doy?"
"That's what they said. I didn't really care about them. I was in there because the Lantern has Peqaad coffee and I developed a taste for that… I was trying to relax some before I travel again. I hate sea voyages. I get seasick. Bad."
"Carpio and Benatar Piola were the other men?"
"Yes."
"We know Carpio," the oldest Brother said, speaking for the first time.
Lorica said, "Only a moron would trust Carpio with any secrets. But someone must have hired him. So he's a thread we can tug at. Piola shouldn't be that hard to find, either."
"Can you tell me anything about this woman who wanted me killed?"
"No. But only because we know so little ourselves. We're hoping to change that. Why would she want to kill you?"
"Please don't start that. I've already got my brain twisted into knots trying to figure that out. The only thing that makes any sense to me is, somebody picked the wrong target. That Carpio. If he was following me around, maybe he followed me from here. Maybe he was supposed to follow somebody else who was staying here."
"Possible, I suppose. Or Starkden might think you're someone else in disguise. Who could she mistake you for?"
Else shrugged. "I've spent my whole adult life fighting for Triamolin. I don't own anything worth stealing, in the Holy Lands or back home in Tramaine. I'm carrying my whole fortune with me. Who would this woman be spying for?"
"Rumors have linked her to the Patriarch, to the Eastern Emperor, and to Hansel Blackboots. Do any of them have any treason to kill you?"
"Hardly."
Lorica added, "Starkden has been associated with the Unbeliever, too. With Lucidia in particular."
"I never had much to do with them. We mostly dealt with tribal raiders that Dreanger bribed to harass us. Except for the battle at the Well of Days. Which I missed because I was laid up with a wound from a poisoned arrow."
Parthen Lorica told him, "We've been forthcoming with you. We hope you have with us. You're leaving aboard Infanti? If anything turns up before she sails we'll send a message."
"I appreciate that" It was a generous gesture. These men respected what they believed him to be. But he hoped they would have no success. Success could mean them finding out that Starkden really was after a Sha-lug chieftain pretending to be Aelford daSkees.
He devoted himself to mental exercises meant to conquer stress. Success eluded him. He envisioned a pretty little blonde girl, a toddler grinning wildly as she tried to walk toward him.
He puzzled that until he realized that she must be his sister. And that left him with the icy chills.
Normally, he failed miserably when he tried to remember his family. Which was surprising. The boys of the Vibrant Spring, while they were still little, remembered their families. Their mothers, especially. And spent a lot of silent tears in the darkness, when their instructors could not see.
Else boarded Vivia Infanti shortly after noon, having eaten nothing all morning. The ship was still taking on cargo when he arrived. He spied both Mallin and Nahlik on the quay.
A Sonsan seaman checked his name off a list. Another man, wearing a pipe on a chain around his neck, drew him aside. "Sir Aelford, the stuff you sent ahead is in your personal locker, up forward. I'll show you."
Vivia Infanti did not resemble the long, lean sharks of war that Else had seen while approaching Staklirhod. She was a huge wooden bathtub with exaggerated castles on either end, a hundred and thirty feet from stem to stern and fifty-five wide at the beam. A monster of a merchant ship, probably originally meant to transport soldiers eastward on the crusader routes.
There were stowage lockers below the rails up forward, obviously installed as an afterthought. The seaman opened a hatch on what proved to be a cubicle slightly more than two feet in each dimension.
"This will keep your stuff from sliding around. Or washing overboard in bad weather. It won't keep anything from getting stolen. It won't keep anything dry if we do run into any weather. Use it accordingly."
"Thank you." Else considered the small oilskin bundle lying inside. The bundle contained written instructions from Gordimer. He was not allowed to open them until he was on his way to Sonsa.
Else stowed his gear, shut the locker, and joined Enio Scolora at the landward rail. Scolora said, "I heard the Witchfinders had you in."
"Who? The Brothers I talked to this morning? They wanted to know what happened at the Rusted Lantern. What nobody else cared about"
"I heard it was Parthen Lonca and Bugo Armiena.
"One said his name was Lorica."
"That's them. They're from the Special Office. They hunt down ghosts and demons and sorcerers and whatnot. You don't want to get noticed by them."
"What? Tell me about this Special Office."
"You didn't have the Brotherhood underfoot in Triamolin, I take it."
“Triamolin is the back end of beyond. We're still there only because it isn't worth the trouble of kicking us out."
Scolora related a long tale about fanatics hidden inside the already fanatic Brotherhood. Men with strong sorcerous talents who wanted nothing less than the extinction of the tyranny of the night.
Else did not understand. The things of the night were no more evil than lions or hyenas. They did what God made them do, like dogs and flies and rainbows. They might be dangerous and deadly but so might any other part of the natural order. The tyranny of the night was part of the world and life.
Scolora shrugged. "They got it made. They can afford to be fanatic. They live out here where the night ain't part of their life every minute of every single day." Which it was amongst the Wells of Ihrian, more so than anywhere else in the world.
"How do they manage when they visit the Holy Lands?"
"They grumble a lot. And take it out on the Pramans. Word is, though, something happened over there that's got them all stirred up."
"Uhm?"
"I think somebody skragged some kind of big deal spook thing. Just a regular guy, not a wizard. They want to know how he did it."
Sailors asked Else and Scolora to move away from the rail. They began singling up the mooring lines. Boats gathered to nudge the vessel away from the quay and toward the channel. Vivia Infanti depended entirely on sail power. Eliminating oarsmen offered huge labor savings.
There was a ghost of a breeze directly on the ship's beam, pushing her toward the quay. The oarsmen in the boats earned their pay.
The deck force did not take in the fenders until Infanti was thirty feet out from the quay and her bow was swinging toward the channel.
The first small sails broke. Infanti soon held her heading on her own, and crept forward, though without adequate steerage way. More sails spread.
Else said, "The master of this tub is good."
"He wasn't, he wouldn't be her master. Sonsans are practical and pragmatic in the extreme. You all right?"
"I'm never all right when there's water under me instead of dirt. Big things with lots of teeth live down there. And they all want to eat me."
Scolora chuckled. "You get seasick, eh?"
The merchantman put more way on. She eased into the channel and ranged the lighthouse that marked the mouth of the harbor. Once Vivia Infanti passed that two-hundred-foot-tall brick structure she would be on
open seas and Else would feel more and more like he had fallen off the edge of the world. "Yes."
Infanti's master lined her on the range markers. Signalmen exchanged messages with the harbormaster ashore and me traffic watchers in the lighthouse. There was a lot of traffic at Runch.
Excitement broke out on the stern castle. One of the signalmen called for the ship's master. Else said, "Something's up."
"They can't get anything past you, can they?"
The ship's master, first officer, and several others closed in on the signalmen. After two minutes of wigwags the chief boatswain shouted orders to the deck crew to get the sails taken in. The helmsman took the ship to starboard, out of the channel. She lost way. Shortly, the anchor chain squealed and rattled.
"Bet that there is the reason why," Scolora said, indicating a longboat putting out from the small quay at the foot of Mount Calen, which was crowned by the Castella Anjela dolla Picolina, headquarters of the Brotherhood of War. "Somebody wants a ride."
Else hoped that was all.
The ship's master barked. The deck hands began herding passengers belowdecks. Demands to know what was going on received no answer.
The working crew followed the passengers, no more pleased about their situation. The ratings and officers followed them, until no one remained above decks but the ship's master himself.
Else heard a boat come alongside and scrape against the hull. People clambered aboard. There was a muffled, heated exchange on deck. That faded away.
Crew and passengers alike virtually exploded onto the open deck when permission came down.
There was nothing to be seen now but a longboat headed toward the quay below Castella Anjela dolla Picolina. The ship's master resumed issuing orders. The crew prepared to get under way again.
An hour later no one knew more than what was obvious immediately. Scolora was of the opinion that, "It's somebody from the Special Office. A big-time sorcerer. Something's going on, Alf. This is history in the making. And we're right here in the middle of it." That excited him.
Else was not excited. He feared that he was why Vivia Infanti had stopped.
No sign was seen of any Brotherhood passenger. If such a creature existed he did his own cooking. The ship's cook was not fixing anything for any secret traveler. No one had been evicted from his quarters.
The west coast of Firaldia, approaching Sonsa from the south, was the most heavily settled rural land Else had ever seen. Every headland boasted some kind of fortress or watch-tower. The land sloped down steeply to the Mother Sea.
Sea traffic was heavy. Any boat that came within hailing distance tried to sell something.
"They're all out because the weather is so nice," Scolora said. "You have to take advantage of the good days."
"Sounds like words to live by." Else had grown comfortable with Scolora. Enio talked constantly but asked few questions. Enio did not mind the silent veteran type. A lot of old soldiers were that way.
Several other passengers were headed home from the Holy Lands. The lot formed a clique. The remaining passengers were pilgrims who had gone to visit the Wells of Ihrian. Else, Scolora, and two others from farther west had agreed to continue on from Sonsa together. Else wondered how he could get shut of Scolora long enough to disappear.
He had not managed enough privacy to look at his sealed orders. Gordimer's packet contained a dozen letters, each to be opened only after he reached a prescribed point in his mission. There were three letters he was supposed to read before he reached Sonsa. They remained unopened. He worried. There might be some critical detail that needed handling… though he doubted that Gordimer fussed worse than a clutch of old women.
"Looking forward to getting home?" Scolora asked.
"Not really. It won't be anything like what I remember. Everybody I knew will be old or dead."
Scolora made a sour face. "You sure as fuck take the fun out, Alf. Now you got me thinking I'm heading for a foreign country."
"There was an old Deve in Triamolin who used to say that."
"Huh? What?”
"That the past is a foreign country. I keep thinking I'm dreaming and pretty soon I'll wake up on my own cot back in Triamolin."
"Yeah? Dream about that. That's the outer lightship." Enio had visited Sonsa before.
Sonsa proper was a riverine city eight miles inland. Vivia Infanti would travel from lightship to lightship until regular river buoys became visible. A pilot waiting on this first lightship would take control for the rest of the journey.
That pilot came aboard. Hours passed. The ship proceeded slowly. Else grumbled, "We're going to spend a whole day just covering the last few miles."
"Bet you they'll let you get out and walk."
"Probably would," he admitted. "I'll be a new man once I get some dirt under my feet." He knew his companions were tired of his complaints.
"We're looking forward to it, pal."
It did take almost all day to climb the Sawn River to Sonsa's great waterfront. Else marveled at the strange, busy buildings, all so tall, so ornate, so gaily painted. Al-Qarn was a dun city of mud brick, low, square buildings, the only color the awnings merchants used to identify their trade. The Kaif did not like color.
Vivia Infanti passed berth after open berth. Else asked one of the sailors why.
"Those don't belong to us. They're Red or Blue. Infanti is a Durandanti ship. The Durandanti are Greens."
Color was a facet of Chaldarean culture that baffled Else. In the Eastern Empire, in the Firaldian kingdoms and republics, in the principalities along the Promptean coast, anywhere that the Old Brothen Empire had had an enduring impact, the populace divided into two or more Colors. These days those usually identified political factions. Colors had begun, in antiquity, as wagering societies and fan groups of team events at the circus and hippodrome.
Sonsa claimed it was the most important mercantile force on the Mother Sea. Aparion and Dateon disagreed. Platadura, over in Praman Direcia, offered a nay-say of its own. Sonsa showed a unified, determined face to the world but the squabbles of the factions at home were worse than those of spoiled children. Without rational basis in the eyes of outsiders.
There were no doctrinal or ideological conflicts. Just a perpetual, intractable contest for control of the state. As in local politics everywhere in Firaldia, it all came down to families.
The Durandanti had the largest merchant fleet They were of the fixed opinion that that made them the foremost Sonsan family.
The Scoviletti and the Fermi did not concur.
The Scoviletti possessed the smallest fleet but the mercenary army they managed, and rented out, mainly in Chaldarean Direcia, gave them a big edge in crude sword power.
And the Fermi, of course, always had a cousin who married the brother of the Patriarch, a daughter who married into a great family of Dateon or Aparion, or made loans to the princes of the city states on the northern plain, or in some other way forged alliances that sheltered them from the envy of the Durandanti and the Scoviletti.
Else grumbled, "Somewhere in Sonsa I'm supposed to find a solicitor who represents most of the families of Tramaine. The letter I got in Triamolin told me to find him. He'd know the latest."
"Makes sense," Scolora said. "So you do need to find him. But will he put you up?"
Yes, probably. There were Dreangerean agents in Sonsa. He was expected to make contact. "I'll hunt him down. If we ever get ashore. Here's my plan. You and Tonto and Adrano go get us set at the factor house and see about our passage to Sheavenalle. I'll find my man, then catch up with you there."
"Good plan. Except for one angle."
"And that would be?"
"I want to find out who's been hiding in the captain's cabin since we left Staklirhod. We can hide on the dock and watch until whoever it is sneaks ashore." Scolora's tone left no doubt of his conviction.
"You sure you want to take that chance?"
"Don't you?"
"I think it's a waste of time." But he
did want to know if some Brotherhood of War sorcerer had followed him across me Mother Sea. "But, all right. Let's just be careful."
"Must be a holiday," Scolora said. "Hardly anybody seems to be working." He dragged everybody behind a cluster of fat cotton bales a hundred yards from the ship.
Else was appalled. This much cotton had been smuggled out of Dreanger? By just this one Firaldian house to just this one Firaldian port?
Scolora had chosen a good spot. It offered an excellent view of Vivia Infanti without the watchers being exposed to me curiosities of the few men working the docks.
"Can you understand these people?" Scolora asked. The Sonsan dialect was almost impenetrable. Else shook his head. He had trouble understanding Scolora.
Tonto whispered, "Something's happening. Shit, You cocksucker, Enio. I didn't believe you. Nobody believed you. But you were right."
They all found places to peek over or around the bales.
Sure enough, there was a stir aboard Vivia Infanti. Only moments earlier the ship had seemed dead, the crew having gone ashore right after the passengers.
"That isn't a Brother," Else said. Two men were leaving the ship. The first was tall and arrogant in bearing, looking around as though daring the universe to try something. The other was older, bent, and struggling with an unreasonable amount of luggage. The tall man did not help. Neither had been seen during the voyage.
"You think they'd run around in their black and red yelling, 'Hey! Here I am?' Whatever they're up to, we already know it's supposed to be secret."
A closed coach drawn by a two-horse team clopped to the foot of the gangway.
"There's what I call timing"
The older man began wrestling baggage aboard the coach. The driver helped. The tall man examined his surroundings intently.
"I don't like this," Tonto said. "Something's wrong. I'm out of here." He slid away into shadows, fast and silent.
"Damn!" Scolora said. "What was that all about?"
Adrano had known Tonto in the Holy Lands. He said, "I don't know. But him and me are still alive because his instincts were always right around the Wells of Ihrian."