The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3)

by Igor Ljubuncic

  “Thank you,” the young man said and headed for the gangplank. It seemed narrow, and he wobbled on carefully, the lack of the seesawing motion, after days at sea, playing silly with his inner ear. Lucas followed, his strides steady. A knot of sailors trailed after them, carrying their luggage.

  Solid ground, Jarman thought. Well, almost. Rotten wooden planks, bleached white with salt and the sun, slick with spray. He looked around: kegs, piles of nets with their white buoys, boxes stacked neatly, cages with birds inside, flapping, making noise. Then, he saw the crowd of dockworkers, waiting their turn to approach the maid and ravish her. They looked coarse, with skin full of wrinkles and grime outlining every one of them, faces that never really got shaved, only trimmed, meaty bodies with extra fat they had to have to be able to lug the cargo all day long, eyes squinting, suspicious, and hostile.

  And that was only their own ship.

  The same scene unfolded to the left and right, stretching without end. Quickly, the majestic glory of Eybalen truly assailed him. He waded through the mass of sweaty, stinking men with his arms half raised, trying to avoid touching them. One of Shipmaster Arimo’s men walked ahead, never quite bothering to check if they kept pace. The fish market almost made Jarman gag. He tried to block the almost physical punch of offal from his eyes and nostrils, but it did not really work.

  Twenty or thirty paces was all it took to clear the dock front and get into the calmer harbor area, with squat warehouses and whorehouses blocking the view of the city. Jarman breathed deeply, as much as he dared. Behind him, the piers seethed. It was madness there. So unlike home.

  He stared at the narrow streets worming toward inner Eybalen. He did not like the look of those streets; they were too dark, too filthy. Refuse ran down the sides in rivers of brown. It spilled into the harbor, just beneath their feet, slopping through cracks in stones and slits in the rotten planks. No wonder the cove was so murky.

  How can people live like this, Jarman wondered.

  “We will not be staying here long,” Lucas tried to reassure him.

  “That’d be all, gents,” the sailor said, saluted casually, and walked back toward the stench.

  Jarman did not like this place. He didn’t like it at all. But then, he had spent his entire adult life in a place where order ruled—order of things, order of thought. You might not like everything at the temple or agree with some of the customs, but you could appreciate the certainty of them. You knew that you would not be randomly punished; you knew that luck and chance had nothing to do with how well you did in your tests and how quickly you progressed in the temple’s cadre. This…was chaos.

  “What now?” he asked, feeling lost. The train of sailors was stacking their things, wooden cases and hide bags, too many for two people to carry.

  Lucas watched the ship’s crew carefully, as if seeing things that the plain eye could not detect. “We must get transportation. A carriage.”

  Jarman pointed dramatically. A brothel, some sort of an inn, the customs office, another brothel, another, a warehouse, a brothel, a building with its windows boarded. “Here?” A steady trickle of men was going about its business, in and out of various doors. This was chaos, it seemed, but it worked somehow.

  “I will take care of it,” Lucas said. “Wait for me there.” The wizard pointed at one of the inns.

  Armin’s son sighed. Well, he had known the price of his journey before setting foot on the Sleek Maid. There was no point delaying the inevitable or commiserating about his own choices.

  “What about our things?”

  “No one will touch them,” Lucas promised.

  Jarman headed for the tavern. He looked behind him. The luggage heap stood out like a lighthouse, begging to be picked by the street vermin the moment the owners left it without guard. But as Jarman walked farther and farther away, casting quick glances back, the heap remained untouched. A swarm of dock rats came and went about; grubby children, sly characters, ordinary workers, they all saw the prize and casually walked around it, not one pausing to reconsider his good fortune.

  Jarman smiled weakly. Magic. They didn’t like it here in the realms.

  That was about to change, he knew.

  Jarman walked into the establishment without bothering to check the name on the swinging plate. And then he realized—shutters smeared in oil paint, all of the same color, all intact, faded but monotone facades, strips of solid cobbles, city watchmen patrolling the crowded waterfront. This was the more prosperous part of the city’s harbor, he noted sadly. He could hardly imagine what went on in the poorer districts.

  “One?” someone asked him.

  Jarman frowned, getting his tongue to flick in Continental. “One what?”

  A man stood in front of him, bearded, thickset. “Are you alone, sir?”

  “Oh, I see.” Would Lucas join him? “One.”

  “After me, sir,” the man said and led him to a tiny table fixed to the side wall of the large common room.

  Jarman sat down. He noticed the man had asked him something else. “Pardon me?”

  “Drinks? Food, sir? We have fresh squid.”

  The young wizard rubbed his chin. Did he dare eat here? These people were filthy; there was no knowing what they would do to their food. But then, he would be spending the next few months, maybe a whole year, maybe a decade, in Caytor, so he had better get used to their cuisine. The sooner, the better, it seemed.

  “Something deep fried, crisp, almost black. And wine.”

  The man wrinkled his nose. “We have more than a hundred dishes on our menu, sir.”

  Jarman shrugged. “Anything really, sir.”

  As the proprietor walked away—or maybe he was just a waiter—Jarman looked about the common room, exploring, recalling hours after hours of study on the culture and customs of the continental people. He looked for the telltale clues of class and wealth and found them easily enough. This seemed to be a place for the rich. Men wore thick rings with jewels on their fingers; others weighed their necks with heavy gold chains. Some had polished boot buckles, or silver filigree on the hilts of their swords.

  They sat usually in pairs or threes, discussing business, it seemed. A violent affair, with a lot of gesturing and shouting, but Jarman saw through these displays of bravado easily enough. The Caytoreans were trying to hide their worry and anxiety behind big words and jerky motions.

  Not all were locals. He spotted another Sirtai in the crowd. He almost waved, but then refrained. That would be foolish. A pair of Parusites entered, their shirts embroidered with the royal coat of arms. There were no women present.

  Just as that thought dissipated, one came and flopped a wooden platter full of sea things in front of him. She was a large girl, with freckles across the bridge of her nose and plump cheeks. The waitress curtsied, the tiniest motion—you might mistake it for a misstep—and smiled. Jarman was inclined to smile back, but then he saw her teeth, almost the same color as his plate, and his enthusiasm withered. She lingered for a moment more, as if expecting something from him, but he just stared at her. In an instant, her smile vanished, and she sauntered away.

  Jarman looked down at his food—mussels, scallops, a coil of squid. None of it looked deep fried. He realized he should have ordered meat or vegetables.

  He tried a few of the clams and found them slippery and tasteless. He gave up after a while. There was no sign of Lucas. He wasn’t worried, but he was definitely bored.

  An hour ticked away, and Jarman decided he could not stand this place anymore. He was irritated from staring at people doing business and reading their lips or trying to guess what they were dealing in. He rose and headed for the door. Someone called, a vague yell, and he turned to see who might be making that noise. Then he realized the stocky man was waving at him.

  “You haven’t paid, sir,” the man explained patiently, but his tone was sharp.

  Jarman slapped his forehead. Of course. He had forgotten. “Yes, my apologies.” And he remembered that he carri
ed no money on his body. Lucas and he had agreed that the life slave would carry all the gold, because Jarman might lose it to cutpurses too easily.

  Now what?

  “I don’t have any money with me, sir. But my slave will be about any moment.”

  The innkeeper did not seem sympathetic. “We don’t charge money up front like some shitholes out there, true, as this is a respectable place here; we got honest customers coming in.” He gestured around him, left and right. “But you still gotta pay before you leave. One silver, sir.”

  The freckled waitress joined the man’s side, her lips sealed shut. Jarman might have liked her if he hadn’t seen her teeth, and he was painfully aware of the fact he had lived for a whole decade without any female company whatsoever. At the moment, though, fear and embarrassment and the horrid image of her mouth made him forget about his sexual deficit.

  “We must wait for my slave,” Jarman explained.

  “We will not wait for long,” the innkeeper said.

  Some of the clientele were staring at him now, frowning, wondering what some Sirtai might have done to invoke the owner’s wrath. They could see his silk clothes and couldn’t quite grasp the fact he was penniless.

  The door banged open, and Lucas walked in. No drama, no fuss, just perfect timing and an ominous presence that made everyone in the room become suddenly busy with the contents of their bowls, plates, and pipes. The innkeeper deflated almost instantly.

  Lucas approached. “How much, kind sir?” he said patiently.

  “Eh…one silver, my lord,” the local stammered.

  The Anada wizard flicked his fingers and offered two coins. “For your trouble.”

  Jarman was glad to leave the inn as quickly as he could. He didn’t stop walking until he reached the luggage heap. There was a large carriage waiting. It was impressive, painted black, with eight horses in the front, shitting on the cobbles. A bored man sat behind the reins, and two men were getting ready to load the chests and bags onto the back and roof of the carriage.

  “Our transport,” Lucas explained. “Sorry about that. I should have reminded you about the services and payments. And here.” He gave Jarman a small purse. “Just in case. Keep it safe.”

  Jarman considered slipping the coins into his back pocket, then reconsidered and placed them in a front one. The bulge chafed when he walked, but he would not allow himself to be embarrassed again, not so easily anyway.

  “It will get better once we leave Eybalen,” Lucas promised.

  Armin’s son nodded almost automatically. Better? Maybe. Their task was perilous, fatal. “All right. Let’s leave as soon as we can.”

  They would be heading north and west, toward Pain Daye, where they expected to find and meet with Emperor James of Athesia and convince him to help them save the world.

  CHAPTER 3

  Amalia stared at her brother. He was a bastard.

  Not just a bastard in the simple sense of the word. Yes, his mother might have been some Eracian woman, and they might have shared the same dad. But he was a bastard in his soul, a ruthless and vain fop who always smiled and had people dancing at the ends of his strings.

  Amalia hated him. And envied him.

  The empress of Athesia was still not fully convinced they were kin. When she looked hard enough, she thought she saw her father, younger, softer; she could glimpse some similarities in James’s features, the cheekbones, the jawline, the lips. Still, she wondered if this man were nothing more than a very skilled trickster, created by Caytor in order to topple her. Well, it sure had worked. Her subjects followed him now, without any doubt in their hearts. They called him His Highness, they talked to him about the future of the realm, and they never once mentioned her.

  She had ceased to exist.

  And for the better, she felt. Because she didn’t know what to do yet.

  “Jerrica!” someone called.

  It took her a moment to realize they meant her. Amalia looked up and saw Agatha approaching, grinning, carrying a bundle in her arms. Jerrica, it was a good common name, and her way of honoring the bodyguard who had smuggled her out of Roalas.

  “Jerrica, look what I have,” her maid said and removed a silk napkin from the top of the bundle.

  Strawberries! Despite her sour mood, Amalia managed to stretch her lips into a smile. “Let’s go inside.”

  They ducked into their shared tent, a small, simple square of canvas that was Amalia’s world now, one of the thousands of little shelters housing Athesian refugees outside Pain Daye.

  “Where did you get those?” Amalia asked.

  Agatha huffed with excitement. “Pete gave them to me.”

  Amalia said nothing. Pete. How things had changed. The first few weeks after their flight, Agatha would come back from his bed sobbing, bruised, and hurting. But as the days passed, the maid seemed to have taken the brutal edge from him and managed to tame him somewhat. A month later, she would no longer weep after he made love to her, no longer complain about his weight and violent streak. And then, the little gifts had started to trickle in, an extra loaf of bread, an extra crock of butter, or a wedge of cheese, oiled cloaks to protect Agatha and her friend from the rain. Pete was an officer, so he could order his soldiers to stand watch in front of their tent, if needed, or keep them safe, like he did during the journey to the mansion.

  Pete was a good-looking man with a career, slowly learning to master his brute strength and coarse manners. Back in Roalas, Agatha could have only dreamed of having a captain for a prospective partner, maybe a husband one day. Out here, her luck had turned. She had almost been killed and raped in the city, and she had evaded meeting a similar fate a dozen times since. She was a refugee at the mercy of a charismatic bastard, and now, she could begin to hope her dream might yet come true. She was happy in her small, simple way. Not one to regurgitate regrets, not one to drown in misery and think of the old mistakes and bitter choices over and over again, Agatha was a survivor, and she had accepted her new life, her new fate.

  Amalia wished she could let her own guard down, even for a moment. But she knew the moment she did, she would break down. She needed her fury; she needed her anger to sustain her.

  “You’re not eating?” Agatha said, biting into a big strawberry.

  The maid would not use honorifics, not even when they were alone in their tent. Smart girl. And tough. Amalia would never have imagined her capable of killing someone, or ensnaring a captain, not when so many other women, better looking and higher born, had ended up as whores or servants.

  Well, the two of them were servants of a sort, but no one bothered them. More than once, Pete had intervened to keep them from being molested by drunk soldiers and brutes. He handed out punches freely and had even pulled out his sword once. Amalia was grateful for that.

  She picked a fruit from the bowl and tasted it. It was delicious. “Lovely.”

  Agatha nodded enthusiastically. “I know. Pete said he will get us lamb tonight.”

  Amalia blinked in appreciation, her mouth full. What would happen when Agatha decided to abandon her and go with her officer to a new and better life, free of the yoke of mercy and chance?

  The empress would remain a lonely, unprotected washerwoman.

  Not now, she thought. She would eat the strawberries and enjoy them. She bit into another one and let her mind unravel. But what it did was focus on the past three months of her life and replay them in quick flashes.

  After defeating the Oth Danesh, James had spent several weeks resting his army and the train of refugees near Berom. It had rained for almost ten days straight, but despite the foul weather, more troops and Athesian citizens flocked to his side. After Roalas had fallen, whatever army had survived the Parusite attack had either retreated to the north of the realm or fled into Caytor, seeking this new emperor. Among them, some seventeen thousand souls who had left the city during the fight.

  Meanwhile, he had dispatched raiding parties all across the south of Caytor, to seek and destroy the
last pockets of the pirate infestation. Then, when the weather cleared and the mud turned solid, he had marched them north, toward his provisional throne, to his wife.

  His wife.

  Amalia remembered the arrival at Pain Daye with brilliant detail. Her half brother had sent proclamations of his victory to every hamlet and town on their way so that people would come out and wave at him, a foreign hero and savior, now one of them. He made sure every councillor, low and high, would hear of his sacrifice.

  But the culmination of his triumph was at the gates of Pain Daye, where a host of several thousand people had gathered to welcome him home. Amalia had watched with cold jealousy as hundreds of investors and bankers waved wreaths of fresh spring flowers at him; she had stared stupidly at the masses of soldiers and common people, a Caytorean every one of them, cheer their Eracian champion.

  Just like her father.

  She hated James so much.

  The celebration had lasted for almost a week. Even the refugees had been given little tokens of glory, food and blankets and a slice of roast. It was a powerful gesture, not lost on mothers with small children in their arms.

  Privy to perks thanks to Agatha, Amalia had earned a place in the inner circle of the army town budding around the mansion, so she could witness much of what was happening. James would not let the troops and stragglers inside, so he made sure to come out to them, waving, mingling, shaking hands, hugging people and patting them gruffly on their backs, raising babies above his head, and exchanging playful blows with officers. He spent time touring the camp, checking on the wounded, asking women about their health and condition. Every day, he would petition a dozen people and then choose a dozen more for various duties at the mansion. For people without a roof above their heads and in shortage of food, having a job in the emperor’s service was a blessing. He did not pick out only beautiful women. He made sure to count in the old and ugly just as fairly.