The Magic Mines of Asharim

by Pauline M. Ross

  When all the goods were transferred to the small barge, the larger one took off westwards. I’d imagined the small barge would now head up to Brinmar, but no, the barger went back to the hammock. It wasn’t until the town bell sounded in the distance, marking the end of the working day, that he hauled himself into his barge and set off up the side canal. He passed out of sight under the wall, then loud clanking noises rang out: another gate.

  The Hrandish drifted back to their camp. They were no longer watching the Brinmar canal or walls, but it hardly mattered. There was no way in.

  ~~~~~

  Since subtlety offered no possibility of success, there was nothing for it but to walk openly past the noses of the enemy. Again, Morna was my comrade for the operation. Again, Xando was outraged to be excluded.

  “We cannot risk being seen together,” I explained. “Two women attract no attention, but you would make them suspicious.”

  “But I can protect you.”

  “By the One! I can protect myself!” It was hard to be patient with him when he was so childish about everything, but he drooped like a summer flower in the face of my irritability, and then I felt guilty.

  But eventually he agreed, rather sullenly, to stay hidden in the hold.

  “You know one of the Ghanxhur dialects?” I asked Morna.

  “Aye, a couple. A bit. Swearin’, mostly.”

  “That’s perfect. As long as it sounds fluent. The one I know is probably different, but it doesn’t matter. Just keep yelling at me, all right?”

  She grinned at me, showing a mouthful of green teeth.

  I chose the following midday for my little scheme. There was a risk another barge would turn up to transfer goods and disrupt everything, but we had to take the chance. We left Breela with the horse on the southern side of the canal, while Morna and Laina paddled the barge across to the Brinmar side. I stomped about on the small area of deck in full barger outfit, shouting in dialect. Morna shouted back, well into the spirit of the game.

  I didn’t dare to look at the Hrandish warriors, but I guessed we had their full attention. As soon as we bumped against the Brinmar wharf I jumped off, yelling even louder. Morna yelled back at me, arms waving violently. I had no idea what she was saying, but it didn’t matter. Then, spitting loudly into the water, she pushed off again.

  Striding across the paved square, I made straight for the small barge. Two of the Hrandish jumped in front of me.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” one said in Hrandish. Then, in the standard language of the Two Rivers Basin, “Stop at once!”

  There was a strong undercurrent of aggression in their minds, as if they were permanently angry, but it didn’t seem to be directed at me. They were bewildered, more than anything else. I was unexpected, and they had no idea how to deal with me.

  Perhaps I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t. The Hrandish had the power to kill me, but I had weapons of my own. For all they could tell, I was just a barger. They weren’t aware I could incinerate them in a moment, if I chose. Such power gave me an exhilarating amount of confidence.

  I fired back a string of dialect at them. It was just a succession of shouted random phrases, no meaning at all, but I trusted they wouldn’t be educated enough to know that.

  They shrugged, exchanging glances. Still puzzled. They had no orders about a barger, so they had no idea what to do. If I had pulled a knife on them, they would have leapt into action, but a twenty-year-old girl yelling in a foreign language flummoxed them. But in their culture, women were no threat, being only useful for sex and menial tasks. I hoped they would see me as someone beneath their notice.

  The barger drifted into my view, woken from his day-long nap and intrigued enough to come and see what was going on. I turned on him, spouting another stream of nonsense, even louder, and putting some venom into it. His eyebrows lifted, but he made no response.

  I pushed past the Hrandish and headed straight for the small barge. This was the critical moment. If they chose to make an issue of it, I was sunk. If the barger said the wrong thing, I was also sunk. But as I passed the warriors, one made a lewd comment to the other in Hrandish, they both laughed and I knew they’d been fooled. Inside, I was laughing at their stupidity.

  A few steps and I was onto the small barge. I whisked down into the cabin and waited. A murmur of voices, dying away to silence. Then the barge rocked. A moment later, and the barger skipped lightly down the steps from the deck.

  In the gloom below, I couldn’t make out much about him, but his mind was clear to me: intense curiosity, certainly, a great deal of excitement, but mostly amusement. And no fear at all. He slid onto a bench behind a small table and folded his arms, his eyes never leaving mine.

  I was too edgy to sit, so I paced up and down the tiny cabin, three steps one way, three the other.

  Then I started to laugh. It was ridiculous. I’d done some strange things in my time, but that was amongst the strangest. The barger laughed too, a low rumble, white teeth gleaming in the cabin’s gloom.

  “Well!” I made an effort to sober up. “I apologise for descending on you in this unorthodox manner. I felt it would be less suspicious if they took me for a quarrelsome lover.”

  A surge of amusement in him. “Oh, don’t apologise. I haven’t had so much entertainment in moons. Please – won’t you sit, Lady?”

  His accent was pure Mesanthia, and although cut through with the slurred vowels of the eastern canals, I suspected he was respectably born, not slave class. Definitely so, now that I could see his face.

  “You are Akk’ashara?”

  “Like you, yes. Would you like some tennel? Or should we retire to the bed to continue the subterfuge? I’m always happy to oblige a lady.” Again, a spike of amusement, and his eyes twinkled.

  He was so good-humoured it was impossible to be offended by him. “You are too kind, but that won’t be necessary. And no tennel, thank you. Have they gone away, do you think?”

  He turned to the tiny window behind him and lifted the drawn curtain a fraction. “They have gone back to their gaming.”

  Before the curtain fell again, a sliver of light fell across him and I got my first good look at him. He hadn’t interested me before when I thought him just another barger, indolently dozing away the hours in his hammock or shifting sacks of grain. But an Akk’ashara was far more interesting. I saw a man of perhaps thirty, well-built across the chest, a sleeveless shirt revealing muscular arms. That went with the physical nature of the job, I suppose.

  The upper left arm boasted a tattoo of a golden snake. Interesting.

  “I have some stennish.” He grinned at me, with a flash of white teeth.

  Stennish – the nobles’ drink, better by far than insipid tennel. I smiled back. “That would be wonderful.”

  While he pottered about heating water and grinding seeds, I watched him surreptitiously. He was a fine man to watch, to be sure, with muscles in all the right places and smooth skin that I desperately wanted to stroke. When he turned to speak to me, my eyes were drawn to his well-shaped lips, seemingly permanently quirked in amusement. Was it me who gave him so much entertainment, or was it life in general? Either way, he was constantly on the brink of laughter, eyes crinkling most attractively. I had a sudden urge to kiss him.

  That shocked me. Where had that come from? Not from him, that was certain. There was a trickle of desire in him, but it was at a low level, buried beneath that irrepressible humour. No, the wish was all mine, and I couldn’t understand it. I’d never felt that kind of attraction before, being drawn to a man who wasn’t already lusting after me. And why now, when I had Xando?

  But maybe Xando was the reason. He was a lovely man, in many ways, and I was very fond of him. Perhaps I loved him, even beyond the reflection of his love for me. But in the end he could never satisfy my physical needs. Whereas this man—

  I pulled myself up sharply. How stupid to be fantasising about a complete stranger. Maybe he had a wife or husband or
lover inside Brinmar. I didn’t even know his name.

  “Now,” he said, setting a painted beaker filled with a steaming dark liquid in front of me, “let’s get down to business. You need to get into Brinmar, yes?”

  “You know my story, then?”

  “Everyone knows it. These louts outside have been shouting all over about the Lady Flethyssanya Dre’allussina who is now a thrower and will try to enter Brinmar. And suddenly you turn up. It’s not hard to work it out. Your flickers are where exactly?”

  “On the barge that brought me, which will anchor close by. The flickers would be distressed to be further apart from me.”

  “And you have Xando with you?”

  “Yes. You know him? Of course you do. He’s been here before. I thought it best to keep him out of sight. A Tre’annatha is too conspicuous. Even these louts might recognise one.” I sipped my stennish, and sighed with pleasure. Demons, how I’d missed its rich flavour.

  “Sensible. I’ve never met Xando, but I’ve heard he’s not a fighter, so he’s best kept away from trouble.”

  “Not a fighter? What does that mean?”

  “Some throwers choose to train flickers as weapons – to kill or paralyse or poison or disarm. Some choose less aggressive traits.”

  “Ah. Healing and so forth.”

  “Exactly. So, Lady. How are we going to get you into Brinmar?”

  “I have some ideas about that. Tell me about this hut of yours.”

  25: A Plan

  Xando protested about it, of course, when I got back to Morna’s barge and explained. “Sit inside that tiny hut all day? What if the tribesmen come in?”

  “They’ve only looked inside once, when they first arrived and not since. There’s nothing in there except spare rope and sacks, and supplies of barge bucket sand. We slip in at night, wait through the day, then I’ll create a diversion so we can sneak onto the barge, and the barger will take us into Brinmar.”

  “But what if—”

  “Demons, Xando, will you stop whining! This is the best I can come up with. Of course there’s a risk, but this way there’s at least a chance of getting past the Hrandish without them knowing anything about it.”

  “And us?” Morna said. “Ye want us to wait for ye somewhere? In case it goes wrong?”

  “We can make ye’s diversion,” Laina said eagerly.

  “No, it’s better if you’re far away. You’ve done enough for us already. No point in you getting any more deeply involved. Whatever happens to us tomorrow, we will be beyond your help.”

  ~~~~~

  We waited till shortly before dawn. Brightmoon meant we couldn’t leave too early, but I left it as long as possible to minimise the hours we had to pass shut away in the hut.

  Morna dropped us about a mark or so to the east of the Brinmar canal.

  “Good luck t’ye,” she said. “Oh, and ye’d better have this. Ye paid too much.” She lifted one of my hands and pressed a small cloth bag into it, heavy with coins. Smiling my thanks, I waved her farewell as the barge glided away, sorry to see her go.

  We walked silently along the towpath. Again I had cause to regret the loss of my comfortable solid boots. We’d had to leave most of our things on the barge, for a large bundle would hamper us. Apart from water flasks and a few scraps to eat, we had nothing but our pretend barger’s clothes and thrower’s coats. It was an odd combination, but with luck no one would see us.

  As we drew near to the hut, we moved off the towpath onto the scrubby grass alongside, crouching down so that we were hidden by the low wall that bordered the paved square beside the hut. Despite the number of men camped just the far side of the Brinmar canal, I could only detect two waking minds, both peaceful and calm. Xando couldn’t even sense those, so I guessed – or perhaps hoped – that they were on the far side of the camp.

  Heart hammering, I peered over the wall. The camp was quiet, with no signs of activity at all. There was no point in waiting. It was the work of a moment to step over the wall and round to the front of the hut. The barger had left the door unlocked for us. We were inside.

  Xando would have moved away from the door at once, but I grabbed his arm. “Wait until your eyes have adjusted,” I hissed. “No point tripping over things.”

  I felt for his hand, and held it firmly. At once his terror overwhelmed me. Poor Xando! He was no hero. I pulled him closer to me and reached up to stroke his face. I was aiming for his cheek, but in the darkness I found his nose instead, and he jumped backwards, bumping into the door.

  “Shhh!” I hissed urgently. Then, because I couldn’t think of any other way to calm him down, I kissed him.

  At first he resisted, but then he melted into me and kissed me back with more fervour than I’d ever seen in him before. His mind was in turmoil, though. When he pulled away, he whimpered slightly. “If this goes wrong, we could be dead before nightfall.”

  “We’ve been in worse positions,” I whispered back, and I could feel him nodding as his head rested against mine.

  I wasn’t sure it was true, not for him, anyway. I’d been through some tricky situations, but Xando had lived a placid life until he met me. Even our escape through the tunnels and flight down the mountain hadn’t been so bad. But he was right: if we were caught, that would be the end of us. Not perhaps by nightfall, for undoubtedly we’d be hauled off to Hurk Hranda to answer for our crimes. And at that thought, my spirits rose again. Being a prisoner would be unpleasant, but we would be alive and so there might be a chance of escape. There was always a chance. Only death removed all possibilities.

  When the first grey fingers of dawn poked through the shutters of the hut’s tiny window and we could see again, we began rearranging the stores so that we had somewhere to hide. Heaps of boxes and sacks walled off one corner, with a couple of rope coils to sit on. I’d learned something from our long hours in the hold of the barge. A determined searcher would find us without difficulty, but it would screen us from a casual glance through the door.

  And then we settled down to wait.

  The barger arrived not long after the first bell sounded from the town, a frail and wavering tinkle at this distance. I felt the bump as the barge pulled up at its wharf, then the scuff of footsteps crossing the paving. After that, the gentle creak of the hammock. Now that I’d met him, I could imagine the sleeveless shirt revealing his muscles, the brown woollen trousers above bare feet, the snake tattoo, the wide grin. He was close enough that I could feel his mind, excited and curious. He would be wondering whether we’d reached the hut safely, whether we were inside right now. He’d want to look, but he was carefully not doing anything suspicious. Sensible man.

  The Hrandish warriors woke some time later, one mind after another surfacing into bored consciousness. A couple were angry, but at a low level. Some personal squabble. I couldn’t hear their voices, but I was aware of them moving about their camp. Several of them came to the canal and pissed loudly into it. Disgusting animals, polluting the water. Much later, several of them came over the bridge to the paved area. I could hear the murmur of voices as they played some game, and felt the sudden spurts of excitement or annoyance as they won or lost bones.

  The day seemed interminable. The noon bell came and went, and the hours dragged on. We had room enough to stretch out, or to stand up to relieve cramped muscles, but the confinement was still trying. Once the barger came in, scrabbled around amongst the supplies, then went out again without a word. He was smart, that one. He would have known from the rearranged boxes that we were safely tucked away. He was quietly going about his normal business.

  Twice barges pulled up at the wharf on the main canal to drop off goods for Brinmar. Then the warriors sprang into life and there were barked commands, milder responses and a lot of tension in everyone.

  Then, finally, the signal I’d been waiting for. The evening bell sounded. The barger’s hammock creaked and shortly afterwards, clinkings and scrapings announced that he was preparing to cast off the barge and
head back to Brinmar.

  Now was the moment for my diversion. I reached out in my mind for one of the derelict warehouses across the canal, and imagined it bursting into flames.

  Nothing happened. No cries of alarm, no sign that anything had occurred.

  I tried again, focusing my mind as intently as I could, clearing out every other thought. This time I felt the tingling in my fingers, but still there was no response.

  I scrambled to the window and peered between the slats. It faced the wrong way, so I couldn’t see the warehouse, but the Hrandish were still strewn over the paving, heads down. The barger was watching, though. He would raise the alarm as soon as the fire took hold. I saw him glance quickly across to the hut, then away again.

  It wasn’t working! I’d failed.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to think calmly. Why would it not work this time? Maybe the warehouse was too far away. Or maybe I needed to see my target, like the tree I’d flamed in the Caxangur soldiers’ camp. So I looked around for something visible. The barge, of course – but that was our escape, and I couldn’t risk harming that. There were no trees within sight, nothing but reeds and spiky grass, nothing that would burn well. But beyond the Brinmar canal was the Hrandish camp. There were flags flapping, and the tops of a couple of tents.

  I flexed my fingers and focused again.

  Success! One of the flags burst into flames. Several people shouted. Another flag. And then a third. More shouts.

  When I’d been watching with Morna, I’d noticed a huge heap of wood stacked for the fire. I couldn’t see it from the hut, since the tents screened it from view, but I knew where it was, I could imagine it bursting into flames…

  A huge fireball filled the sky. There was pandemonium in the camp, and at last the gamblers were drawn from their game, abandoning their bones to race across the bridge to the camp. The space between us and the barge was empty.

  Now, now was the best chance. Our only chance.