“That’s just Enultramar, I think,” Tyndal sighed. “At least this part of it. Someone will come by and kick it into the water shortly, and feed the fishes and caiman. All part of the Storm Lord’s plan,” he said, with mock piety.
“Lovely,” Rondal said, sniffing.
“Are you kidding? From what I’ve heard Solashaven is a resort spot compared to some of the pits of hopelessness around the Bay. When you get back into the swamps and the river ports, or into the old Sea Lord havens that have been abandoned, things get really rough.”
“No wonder the Brotherhood took hold, here,” Rondal agreed. “With as much trade, commerce, piracy and slavery that go through Enultramar, they’re likely an essential part of the economy.”
Tyndal looked at him with a start. “You’re not having second thoughts about this, are you?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” assured Rondal. “In fact, seeing this kind of institutionalized wretchedness makes me all the more certain of our goal. The Brotherhood are parasites on this culture, I see now. And while destroying them may be destabilizing, I remind you that we sit in a land whose lords have rebelled against their lawful liege – who is, coincidentally, our lawful liege. Destabilizing a regime who is in rebellion to him would be, I think, counted as a good thing.”
“Well, when it comes to messing things up, we’re pretty good at it.”
“I cannot argue with that,” Rondal agreed. “And after everything we’ve seen – Pratt the Rat, poor Estasia, and what those bastards did to our friends in the Land of Scars – I’m more than eager to hold them accountable.”
“First things first,” Tyndal reminded him. “We’re here for Ruderal, not revenge. Not yet. Our mission is to rescue him and his mom, not just kill Rats.”
“Oh, I know. We seem to have found where they might be lurking,” he said, nodding to the warehouse across the street. “What do you propose we should do?”
Tyndal looked guiltily at his drink. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Ron. Honestly? I think you should be calling the shots on this mission. I’m . . . I’m worried I’ll screw it up. And then Ruderal will end up dead, because I wasn’t smart or subtle enough.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit!” Rondal exclaimed. “You’re every bit as smart as I am!”
“And as subtle as a three-breasted whore,” snorted Tyndal. “Look, I understand my limitations. There is a time for kicking doors in, and there’s a time for subtlety. I trust your subtlety more than I trust my ego so . . . I want you to take the lead on this. There’s too much at stake for us to send it into the chamberpot.”
Rondal was stunned. It was the most frank and honest admission of his egotistical friend’s limitations he’d ever heard Tyndal utter, and the fact that he recognized them as such was astonishing.
“Well, close your mouth – especially around here,” Tyndal counseled, quietly but in an irritated voice. “You do not want a fly from here anywhere near your mouth. Don’t say anything,” he added. “Just accept that I’m following your leadership on this mission and keep the wise-ass comments to yourself. Or would you prefer to argue over every little detail, as usual?”
“I . . . all right,” Rondal said, simply, understanding that any outpouring of emotion at Tyndal’s incredible admission would sour the effect. “All right, I’ll lead this time. You can lead next time, when we’re just interested in rampant destruction. For this, we are going to require subtlety,” he began, hoping that Tyndal was earnest in his declaration.
“Agreed,” Tyndal nodded, sipping his punch.
“We’ve tracked that rascal Skrup to his lair, where he probably has Ruderal and his mother prisoner. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll know who does, and where they’re being kept. So our first order of business will be to determine just who is inside, where they are, and what security the place has. From there, I’ll form a plan for an effective rescue,” he added, in a businesslike tone.
“And I’ll get us some real drinks while you do that,” Tyndal said, rising, with a sour expression on his face. “I don’t know what that vendor was talking about. This punch is revolting!”
Chapter Two
Ruderal’s Hovel
“The Sea Lords of Enultramar bore several tokens of their bloodthirsty cult of religious pirates, over the centuries, but among the most primal are the symbols of the Storm Lord and his five infamous daughters. The Storm Lord, represented since antiquity by the symbol of the Sea Axe, which also became the symbol of piracy in the early days of the cult, was primary in the religion.
“But the Five Daughters of the Storm Lord, originally minor figures in the cult when it was in its infancy in Cormeer, became far more important amongst the Sea Lords in self-exile in Enultramar. As their civilization went from rudimentary domination over the coastal tribes to a legitimate maritime trading power, the symbols of the five daughters, which themselves symbolized important elements of the Sea Lords’ maritime civilization, become far more prominent: a broken mast for the Shipwrecker, the chalice of the Maiden of Havens, the slanted anchor for the Fairdealer, the grappling hook and chain for the Corsair, and a lamp for the mystical Salt Crone.
“It is clear from this iconography that the focus of the Sea Lords, as a culture and civilization, was ever the sea, piracy, and trade; yet only in Enultramar do we see evidence that this simple creed achieved a sophistication undreamt of in Cormeer, Remere, the Castali Havens, or even Farise. With the institutions of shipwreck (an eternal challenge for the daring mariners), good portage, prosperous trade, piracy, and the mystery of the sea. As the Sea Lords of Enultramar engaged in their commercial domination of the Shallow Sea, the sophisticated priesthood formed around the institutionalized nature of the Five Daughters soon spread to other Sea Lord strongholds, making the cult nearly universal in scope.”
The Heraldry Of Alshar (3rd Edition)
By the Venerable Odborn,
Chaplain To The Seventeenth Lord of the Waves
The day before, the lads had only just arrived at the sleepy, filthy, economically depressed walled town of Solashavan by ferry from the river ports at the mouth of the mighty Mandros River that divided southern Alshar down its entire length, from the Narrows to the Bay.
Their destination was in the eastern quarter of the great Bay of Enultramar, the ancient harbor of Sea Lords and pirates, mariners and mercenaries, merchants and adventurers, the town that both Ruderal and Hard Skrup came from: Solashaven. While the very name Enultramar conjured visions of neatly whitewashed towns with the distinctive green roofs, tall ships and valiant Sea Lords, wealthy Coastlords, pirates, mariners, romance and intrigue across the Five Duchies . . . they were now facing the squalid reality of the ancient port in their search for Ruderal.
The week-long trip across Castal from Sevendor, paying to be smuggled through the hidden passes of the Narrows, the trip down-river past the glorious architectural legacy of Falas and the incredible prosperity of the Great Vale and the Alshari Coastlands, and their arrival in ancient, storied Enultramar had led to this very moment: standing in the rain outside of a sewer outflow, where a tiny hovel of driftwood and cast-off junk with nothing but a much-mended net and a small boat gave testament that the place was ever inhabited.
“Ruderal lives . . . here?” Tyndal asked, surprised, when the two of them tracked down the lad’s home by asking around Solashaven until someone knew.
The hovel was not even a peasant’s cottage, it was a kind of lean-to croft overlooking the muddy river, built against a wide outflow sewer pipe that brought stormwater . . . and worse things . . . from the town of Solashaven. It was situated in the shadow of an ancient ruined Sea Lord tower, one of many such ruins that dotted the rocky harbors of Enultramar. Another hovel on the other side of the twin pipes was currently occupied, but from the amount of debris in front of the modest door, it had been a while since anyone had lived on this side.
“Everyone has to live somewhere,” Rondal pointed out. “Think of some of the hovels we’ve seen. This on
e isn’t that bad,” he said, unconvincingly.
“Well, the walk to pitch the chamberpot is short,” conceded Tyndal, wrinkling his nose at the constant odor that wafted from the huge brick pipes. “And he is close to work,” he added, glancing over his shoulder at the waterfront. “But in general I can think of several more preferable addresses.”
“Shall we scry first?” Rondal proposed.
“I’m in favor of just barging right in,” Tyndal said, and proceeded to do just that. He pushed the rickety timber door aside and nearly upset it from the fragile leather hinges and sent a splash of rainwater across them both. The interior of the hovel was gloomy, with only a few beams of light coming through the roof and improvised rafters. Tyndal conjured a magelight to bathe the room in light, and instantly regretted it.
“Eww!” he said, as cockroaches scurried away from the sudden light. “It seems as if the chambermaid has been sacked. How long has it been since they were here?”
The lads knew that Ruderal lived with his mother, from the brief exchange with the Alshari boy they’d had in the Land of Scars. Indeed, his cooperation with the Brotherhood of the Rat, using his unique magical talent to perceive enneagrams, was coerced due to their keeping his mother hostage.
Though they’d been unable to free Ruderal at the time, being busy trying to save their lives and those of the Kasari, they’d promised the boy that they would repay his timely assistance in helping them escape.
At the time it must have sounded hollow to the lad, who was only ten or eleven years old and just coming into his rajira. But their association with the Kasari and their high standard of loyalty, as well as their own sense of duty, compelled them to make the long, expensive trip into what was essentially enemy territory to track down the Talented boy and rescue him – and his poor mother – from the clutches of the Brotherhood of the Rat.
It wasn’t as if their mission was entirely selfless; Ruderal’s sportish talent was unique, from what they could tell, and they both realized that with proper development the young fisherman could not only one day be a great mage, he had the capacity to do great things. Master Minalan was terribly interested in enchantment, at the moment, to the extent of forming a small industry around the craft. But that interest had led to even more study of the arcane subject of enneagramatic magic, beyond the simple forms most magi were aware of.
Combining compassion and duty with naked opportunism, the two were convinced that rescuing the lad and his mother, and returning with him to the Spellmonger, might prove highly significant. The opportunity to collect information on the criminal Brotherhood of the Rat, their organization, its strengths, weaknesses, membership and plans from within their strongholds in Enultramar, was also something that the young knights magi were intent upon.
“It’s been months,” Rondal concluded, after examining the tiny fireplace (made up of a cast-off iron pot with a hole in the side and daubed with clay) and rubbing the ashes through his fingers. “This fire hasn’t been lit in at least three months.”
“It’s been more than a year since we saw him,” Tyndal said, forebodingly. “Do you think they executed him? He witnessed an awful lot, in the Land of Scars.”
“Only if they wanted to incur the wrath of their allies,” Rondal said, examining a collection of treasures the little family accumulated, clearly salvaged amongst the flotsam that flowed outside their door. “The goblin was quite irritated with the Rats’ who wanted to kill the boy,” Rondal reminded him. “Recall he said that Ruderal was more valuable than all of them put together. If that’s the case – and I think we both know it is – then they wouldn’t want to kill that piece of leverage.”
“But they don’t need his mother,” Tyndal pointed out, taking a seat on the ramshackle cot that passed for the only bed in the place.
“They do if they want Ruderal’s cooperation,” Rondal pointed out. “You heard him: if anything happens to his mother, he’d rather die than help them.”
“He’s a kid,” Tyndal reasoned. “Any kid would say that about his mother.”
“Ruderal isn’t just any kid. You saw him. He’s resolute. And he doesn’t scare easily.”
“A point,” Tyndal agreed. “So they aren’t here. Is there any clue where they might be?”
“Here? It looks like they left they place neatly enough. So either she was lured away or went voluntarily.”
“No signs of struggle,” agreed Tyndal. “That’s promising. But not particularly helpful.”
Rondal continued to look around the room. Finally, he sighed and gave up. “I can’t find anything. They left. They haven’t come back. But no one has messed with their things,” he observed. “When was the last time you were in a place this desperate and didn’t see someone take advantage of someone else’s poor fortunes?”
“That . . . is interesting,” Tyndal admitted. “Not that everything in this craphole isn’t worth more than a few shells, but considering the number of vagabonds we’ve seen here, I would expect a cozy hovel like this to get snatched up quick.”
“Right. Which means the place is being protected, or at least watched.”
“The neighbor?”
“It’s a place to start,” conceded Rondal.
They had to wait until dusk before the man who lived on the other side of the sewer returned from his day’s labor in the broad estuary of the river. He bore his light punt on his back as he trudged up from the shoreline, and carried a heavy basket of small fish and crustaceans over his shoulder.
“Hail, fellow!” Rondal called, in a friendly tone. The fisherman halted in front of the door, and dumped his boat unceremoniously next to the path with a splash. “We’d like a moment of your time, if you can spare it.”
The man, whose dark brown features had been beaten by the sun and the brine, eyed the two of them suspiciously. He straightened, allowing the basket to tumble at his feet, and he put his hands on his belt . . . near to the brass handle of a long knife the basket concealed.
“What would a couple o’ gentlemen like yourselves be doing at my home?” he asked, cautiously but boldly.
“Just a few words, my friend,” Tyndal called. “No harm is intended.”
“Yet you are between me and my door,” the fisherman said, darkly.
“Just to get your attention,” Rondal assured. “Please, carry on. We merely wish to ask you a few things about your neighbors.”
“The widow and the lad?” the man asked, surprised. “They’ve been gone for more’n a year, now.”
“Any idea where they went?” Rondal asked, congenially. The man stiffened.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, plainly suspicious.
“Relax, my friend,” Tyndal assured him. “We’re not thugs or cutthroats. We’re friends of Ruderal, come to repay him handsomely for a boon he granted us.”
“You’re not with them ruffians, then?” the fisherman asked. “I hate those godsdamned Rats, Shipwrecker take them all!”
“Indeed, we’re here to contend with those ruffians for what they have done to the poor boy,” Rondal agreed. “And his mother, if she still lives.”
“Oh, aye, she still lives,” the fisherman admitted. “Leastways, from what I can tell. Every few weeks one o’ them ruffians comes down to glance at the place, make sure it hasn’t run off or been taken by the waves. Says he’s watching the place, keeping it safe,” the man reported, skeptically. “Doesn’t dress as . . . oddly as you gentlemen, though,” he added.
Both lads were wearing their traveling gear, common in the Castali Riverlands or Gilmora, but decidedly out of fashion here in cosmopolitan Enultramar. Though the wharfs and riverfronts teemed with all manner of strangely-dressed folk when ships put into port, Tyndal and Rondal were announcing their foreign nature merely by the clothes they wore.
“We’ve just arrived in Enultramar,” offered Tyndal. “And we’re planning on leaving quickly . . . once we’ve found Ruderal.”
“And quietly,” Rondal agreed, taking a few s
ilver shells from his pouch. “We’d appreciate your discretion about the matter,” he said, handing them to the man. “If the Rats catch wind of us, they might move him, or worse.”
The man took the coins slowly, as if in great thought. “You intend no harm to the boy?” he asked.
“On our words as gentlemen,” Tyndal agreed. “In fact, if all goes well, Ruderal will soon begin study in a profession he’s profoundly talented in.”
“Ah, then you’d be sorcerers, then,” the fisherman said, knowingly, pocketing the coins. “After that ruckus two years back with the lad, I thought he might have the spark. So aye, I’ll keep your secret,” he added.
“He has it by the bucketful, we think,” Rondal nodded. “And we intend to see it properly developed. If you could point us in the direction of where they are keeping him and his dame, it would go a long way toward that end.”
Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series Page 3