by D. H. Aire
Shaking its maned head, Raven refused to answer. Puzzled, George turned away. Fri’il and Se’and both shrugged. Oddly reassured, George wondered. Something very important had just happened; although, he was uncertain just what that might be.
Staff struggled to interpret what little data they had amassed as George moved to leave, “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Se’and exclaimed grabbing his arm and hauling him back. “You are staying right here, Master Merchant,” she said with emphasis on the title. “We agreed to your little plan. Now, here we stay.”
Ruefully, he considered a rather impolite rejoinder, when he hastened out of the way of entering patrons— and their rather burly guard. “Ah, good day to you,” Jeo the Merchant said, smiling warmly.
Se’and relaxed, watching their own illusion play before the world without. With a wayward glance at Fri’il, the beast watched the newcomers and the cautious play of Se’and’s hand on her dagger now even more wary of trouble.
Meddling
10
He was referred to as simply ‘the Prince.’ If you had a special problem, you could come to him for assistance. Whether your problem was financial or otherwise, the Prince could see that your particular problem was taken care of— or was never heard from again. After all, every problem had its price.
Migael had wanted information. Terhun and his caravan guards had been decidedly hostile to bribes regarding information about any of the caravan members in his trust, which is why Migael traveled with the man. Such things had their drawbacks.
As far as Migael knew, no one had ever heard of “Jeo the Merchant” before a certain Market Day in Lyai, which had seemed to make the man’s fortune in that Province –– very much to Migael and many another merchants’ regret.
“So he came to me for information,” the Prince stated, chuckling.
The Prince and this merchant’s visit did not amuse Mage Meltran. “I am not a fortuneteller or seer, Prince. Why have you brought this one’s paltry concerns before me?”
“Merchant Migael is not a poor man, Mageling. Perhaps, with your aid the information he seeks could be mutually useful to each of us,” replied the Prince, smiling in such a way that his guilded front teeth caught the light.
Migael smiled uneasily in return, “So, the Prince assured me... I am prepared to pay you handsomely for the scrying!”
Sighing, Meltran rasped, “Then he has not told you why he, himself, might be interested in this foreign merchant? The Prince of Thieves and Beggars, who usually knows everything that happens among the human populace of our fine Tiers?” Migael colored slightly, realizing that his bargaining with the prince may have been far too quick.
The Prince grinned wolfishly.
Shrugging, Meltran shook his head and pointed at the payment bowl on the table. “Any apprentice versed in the lore could do a simple scrying, but what you need is a scrying that is not so simple, I take it.”
The Prince rasped, “He uses no mage wards to protect his stall or rooms, yet they are warded...” Ruefully, he added, “Of course, that might only be conjecture.”
Quickly, Migael muttered, “‘Tis true, Lord Mage. My apprentices have found it impossible to learn anything – and they are well trained – as any merchant must be who seeks real profit in the Markets.”
Meltran ignored the men, disturbed on another level entirely. He had lost his best “tracker” to sanity— something plainly impossible, yet here in the city was a merchant who used no visible wardings This sounded like no Faeryn trained magery, but perhaps that ilk had mastered a new technique and were quietly interfering with their Academy trained Guild Brothers.
Migael placed gold coin in the payment bowl as Meltran took up his scrying brazier. The fire would reveal the truth of Faeryn involvement readily enough.
Unnoticed Gallen practically fled down the street. Tears streamed down his face as he entered a cluttered and abandoned alley, where he had squirreled away his urchin rags.
Out of breath, he gulped for air, throwing off his purloined apprentice garb. “How could I have been so stupid?! I’ve nothing to prove!”
Ever since the incident in the house as he had tried to rescue his missing leftenants, everything seemed to be wrong. He swallowed hard, forcing back remembered terror, feeling the edges of what he termed “reality” shifting about him. Now was no longer the time to let his odd talent run wild— it was enough that it could be relied upon when he really needed it.
Gallen’s talent had not helped him that day at the top of the stairs. He had faced that which he had hoped never to face again.
Shaking his head, he tried to thrust the memories back, bury them before utter madness and fear could cripple him. Gallen had a new family now. The Pack was his. He helped them, taught them to read how to survive— something he had been forced to learn by necessity.
Diet and cleanliness, such simple little games, were the rules he had fostered in his Pack. Now, Cle’or was added rules, changing things in the name of “restitution.”
Terhun was spy, a Provincial agent without a doubt, and was helping to train just of few of her urchins. Cle’or promised to teach them skill in dagger, and even in wielding lightweight short swords. And for no reason Gallen wished to consider he was allying his Pack to her and that strange merchant mage back there!
Gallen settled to the ground and pulled off the apprentice boots he had found, then he threw them across the alley. “Damn! What am I doin’!?”
“That is precisely what I was wondering,” Cle’or asked, perched in the shadow of the roof above.
Startled, Gallen looked quickly from side to side as if afraid of being observed by others as well. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Me?” Cle’or swung down to the ground from the concealing extended rafters. “I followed you here this morning. I thought I would just wait to see how long you would play at your sudden double life.”
Glaring, Gallen rasped, “You waited for me to come back. You didn’t follow me from here?”
“Now that would have been a bit unsporting, don’t you think? After all, a person should have some privacy.”
Gallen nodded, instantly relaxing, “Oh, I can appreciate that.”
Kneeling beside the lad, Cle’or gently touched his reddened cheek, “You’ve nothing to prove to me. I know you can take care of yourself.”
“Not well enough,” he muttered bitterly. “I sometimes forget that I depend on the Pack about just as much as they depend on me.”
“That’s why you’re special, Gallen.”
Gallen chuckled darkly, “That’s my curse, all right.”
“Would you care to tell me about it?”
“Not particularly... Perhaps someday, if you will tell me why you’re really doing this.”
Cle’or looked at him long and hard a moment, “You use what tools nature provides— as necessary. And nature has thought fit to provide you and your Pack. On the other hand, nature has also provided you with me... We both champion our families— and happen to be very good at it.”
“That is also not really an answer.”
“Privacy and trust must be mutually built. You have my word that I mean your pack no ill by what I would teach them.”
Gallen nodded wryly amused by her statement, “But in return you want to use my Pack as your personal spy network in the city.”
Cle’or was silent for a time, then offered her hand to help Gallen rise. She only smiled before gesturing the urchin out of the alley, “After you.”
With every step Gallen continued to wonder about just what he had got himself and his Pack into.
The fire cast shadows upon the chanting Mage Meltran’s face. The spell of “Seeing That Which Is” hung in the air; although, neither Migael nor the Prince could tell you the sound of any given word. Spell cast elvin speech was like that to deaf and mute humans, but to the elfblooded the words rang with a force greater than any music ever sung or played.
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br /> The flames changed color as the scrying spell took them. Images flickered in their depth, and then urchins seemed to be standing watch over a particular merchant stall. The Prince frowned darkly seeing this. Gallen’s Pack, he knew, had become entirely too occupied of late with things they should not. They had other tasks to do, if they were to meet their regular payment to him. The stolen jewel from the Merchant, Bryan, had been news that had pleased him, but he had heard rumors that it had been returned to its former owner damaged to worthlessness. Those urchins were just watching that stall and actually seemed to be guarding the place.
Migael frowned as the image in the fire neared the tented stall’s boundaries, then the fire flickered and welled backward. Incredibly, the image blurred.
“It is warded well enough, I see,” Meltran muttered.
“But let us seek out the source of its casting.”
The flame changed color as he sang out a variation on the chant. “Seeing” on another level entirely. Yet, the flame remained simple flame; it showed nothing that either Migael or the Prince could claim. Apparently, it showed nothing to Meltran either, whom now seemed to actually shout the spell all the more forcefully.
A look of emptiness abruptly touched the outer fringes of the flame. Meltran frowned, sweating, before the fire that cast no heat. The emptiness vanished; brightness of a light beyond even the elfblood spectrum briefing touched the flame’s whole image, which shifted blearily fast away from the place the scrying could not see.
The image startling settled elsewhere in the Tiers. A merchant with a walking staff, a dwarf, and a fey beast trotting beside them marched toward what appeared to be the Dwarven Quarter of the Sixth.
Frowning in confusion, Meltran asked, “Is that the Merchant, Jeo?”
Migael nodded, “It is— but what is he doing there?”
The Prince stared into the fire, all he could see was the pair being followed by another group of Gallen’s urchins.
What was that lad doing? One to follow and keep tabs on a prospective victim was understandable but ten of the little rats? That was an escort if ever he saw one!
The Dwarf was gesturing at a building just down the street from the entry to the Quarter. Migael gasped, immediately recognizing it. “No… they couldn’t be. It’s not possible!”
Meltran heard none of that as he concentrated his focus on the man. His image was blurry, fainter than it should be while the dwarf next to him was starkly clear in every detail. The beast at the merchant’s side paused. It turned its head and gazed at Meltran as if it could see him scrying. He could hear it growling, challenging him.
Then he realized that there was someone else in the scrying, an angry elfblood face, entering the background, watching the merchant, whom abruptly turned his head.
‘Meltran,’ said the face materializing in the fire, which welled up out of the mage’s control. ‘Do not interfere in matters totally beyond your ken.’
“Highmage!” Meltran cried blanching as the features of the Highmage Alrex firmed. Fire began to lick at the ceiling, smoke beginning to billow from the now white hot fire.
“Out!” Meltran shouted as the Prince and the merchant hurried to exit. The mageling shouted out the chant to end the seeing. The fire faded, but the elvin face of Alrex continued to hover in the smoke left behind.
The mageling stopped and glanced back from the wide-open doorway, anxiously confronting that sage face. ‘No more, Meltran. No more,’ then both the smoke and the face vanished.
Walking side by side with Stievan, Jeo the Merchant stated, “This is really quite unnecessary.”
“You presented a gift to the family of my dear bride. Your gift to them was beyond price— please accept this, it is merely a token of my family’s gratitude for your gesture.”
“But there is no need.”
The dwarf grinned with satisfaction. “Perhaps not, but you eased the worries of so hasty a wedding day.”
“Yes, I believe I heard that dwarves would consider a year hasty. Your people think of things in the long term, which I find most interesting.”
Proudly, Stievan nodded, “It is good to know that those of shorter spans can see the benefits of thinking long and hard before choosing one’s path. Thus, you prove to me that our gift is well placed, good merchant.”
The merchant glanced at the tawny, black-maned, beast dogging his heels contentedly. His partner’s concession for “letting him go out alone.” He frowned, but no longer at the crowd of other people walking the street whom hastily cleared out of the Raven’s path. He could feel the eyes upon him, knew they were being followed.
‘Not worry, Father,’ muttered Raven’s voice in his mind. ‘They friends.’
‘Perhaps, I should keep you home more, if you keep making such friends.’
There was a huffing sound issuing from the beast’s mouth, which he generally interpreted as her laughter in that form. He caught sight of a familiar figure watching him from a side street as they passed and finally approached the Dwarven Quarter. Raven suddenly glanced behind, stopping.
Jeo casually took a firmer grip on his staff, willing it to quiescence. He could feel the ‘otherly’ interest, had by necessity become sensitive to it. There was elvin magery at work around him.
However, Stievan was oblivious to this. With a broad grin, he gestured before them. “That is it, there. You will find the building to be in excellent condition. It has remained empty for more than two decades. Though, many have tried to haggle with us for it, we have not rented or sold it to anyone. Now, it is yours by the terms of the deed. You shall forever have a factor of your Merchant House within our city’s walls.”
Jeo studiedly ignore the nervous feeling the presence of magic was giving him as he turned, staring at the building “gifted” to him. He gaped. It was no small structure, “This property buttresses the Dwarven Quarter to the Fifth Tier.”
“Why, so it does? The city wall does look majestic behind it does it not? You will find that the property has many advantages. There is space to maintain multiple families, servants, and guardsmen. It also possesses suitable space warrened below to afford warehousing and inventorying. Should you ever decide to sell it, the terms stipulate that the space reverts back to my family and heirs; the price being that which it would sell for today, no matter its condition upon its sale.”
“You are too generous,” the merchant rasped, incredulous.
Unconsciously seeing the structure with an eye for its architectural design and added, “All I did was present a gift.”
Stievan nodded wisely, “What you gave was a beyond price. Tin is much valued in Tane, and our families fled to the Faer City in the harshest of times. Even now, the tin goblets and bowls you gifted us are being scored with designs so intricate, I am told, that my wedding table will be the loveliest in living memory.”
“I, uh, don’t know what to say,” he muttered, awed by such a gift. As they walked up to the building and crossed the coachman’s drive, Stievan announced, “Say you will ever befriend my people, good merchant, as so few humans seem willing to, these days. Nothing more could my people desire.”
Jeo paused at the entry, profoundly touched, and took Stievan’s fine strong left hand in his own. “Know this: your people are no less human than mine. We are kindred, you and I, should you ever have need— seek me... My House pledges your people every aid.”
Stievan gaped as Jeo struck his staff upon the ground. It flared with an almost living light.
‘SO WITNESSED!’ rang out a voice in triumph that neither man heard, but which Raven did. She stared abruptly upward at a ripple in the air. A silver haired elvin face smiled down at her. Her eyes widened, seeing the kindly face.
‘Witnessed,’ she replied to the ether.
Part Two:
Family Life
1
The Seventh Tier, which young Irin heard most referred to it as “Slum” and “Personal Hell” from the denizens of the Faer City to the hapless enough to aff
ord no better life, was home.
There was work— work to be found here in the city’s largest and lowermost Tier. The Canal trade worked the western docks, harbor, and warehouse district. Some people even claimed that only this part of the Tier could legitimately be even called the Seventh.
The Seventh offered as disreputable life as one might find anywhere in the Empire. Her father told her often enough that just about anything could be bought or sold here, people were that desperate to grasp for hope of attaining a better station. A dream her father grimly meant to see true for his own family, if no one else’s.
Of course, a taproom had never seemed much the way to wealth to Irin’s reckoning. It was difficult even to believe her father’s frank assertion that they would, one day, live better lives in the Sixth. He, as a proper merchant of more than a taproom, and her, a bride, properly wed to a reputable merchant, bringing alliance to one powerful factor or another.
Meanwhile, she was old enough to work the room, saving money otherwise spent on another serving woman. She went barefoot across the dirt floor, though, her father did not seem to notice.
She handed out dented mugs filled with her father’s particular formula of “watered-down-just-right” ale. The men drank the ale and paid the taproom price, after all, this was no true tavern, as anyone could plainly see.
Irin wound her way back toward the stairs in the rear, where the kitchen was to be found. The taproom was her home. The second floor held space for sitting room and two bedrooms, her parents’ and her own, which she only rarely had to give up when her father rented it out for an hour or two, or even a night.
She loaded up her tray for the next round at the end of the bar. “Cook, are those haunches of mutton done yet?!”
The cook screamed back, “I’ll ‘ave ‘em, when I ‘as ‘em!”
Irin groaned, regretfully. What a night! The noise in this place was beginning to rattle her.