“We happen to be going in the same direction. I am circling the world by traveling east.”
“You’re welcome to come with us,” the old soldier said. “You’re a man who makes things happen.”
They put Ezu’s bag on the packhorse, and he rode double with Robien, the lightest of the three.
“Why do you wear those glasses?” asked Raika.
Without answering, Ezu unhooked the gold wire frames from his ears and offered the spectacles to her. She put them on.
“Sink me! It’s daylight!”
Robien said, “What do you mean?
She gave the glasses to him. “Try ’em yourself!”
The elf slipped the springy wire hooks around his ears. When he raised his gaze to the horizon, he was startled to see the landscape of the high plain was bright as day. He could see Howland riding a few steps ahead, Raika, everything, as clearly as if it were noon.
He removed the dark yellow lenses and gave them back to Ezu.
With a smile, Ezu tucked the spectacles into his robe.
As the night wore on, Ezu told them stories of his travels, such as his visit to the island of Kernaf.
“Kernaf is inhabited entirely by pirates,” he said. “They elect a chief to rule over them from a conclave of ships’ captains. The current chief is a fellow named Gramdene, widely reputed to be the handsomest man in the world.”
“A handsome pirate? Not likely!” Raika said. “Buccaneers lead too rough a life to be pretty.”
“Well, I met him, and while I don’t claim much taste in such matters, he was a most striking fellow,” Ezu remarked.
Gramdene, he said, was not yet thirty, with olive skin, bronze colored hair, and eyes of different colors.
“How’s that possible?” asked Robien.
“I cannot say, but I can vouch for them. One is darkest brown, like Raika’s, and the other pale gray.”
From plundered ships Gramdene acquired a rich wardrobe and never went out without being garbed in the finest silks, velvets, and brocades. He had a personal entourage of five fierce female pirates, whom he called his “Hand,” who’d sworn blood oaths to defend Gramdene at the cost of their own lives.
“His wives?” Howland asked.
“No, indeed! The Hand are also sworn to chastity, lest jealousy of each other lead them to shirk their duty to protect Captain Gramdene.”
Raika smirked. “Has this handsome fiend no lovers, then?”
Ezu shrugged. “It’s a subject of much speculation. While I was on Kernaf, he was said to be paying court to a female captain named Artalai, granddaughter of pirate queen Artavash.”
Raika twisted in the saddle to face him. “Does her line still exist? She was from Saifhum!”
Howland said, “I never heard of her.”
“She was a bold and wicked woman, with hair like flame and a temper to match. The ruler of Saifhum, the Grand Mariner, obtains office by buying it. Whoever pays the largest sum to the inhabitants of the island wins the title for life. She tried to become ruler of Saifhum by pledging the greatest sum to the people but was outbid in the end by a moneylender, Pertinex.
“When Artavash lost, she led her fleet of sixty galleys away, sowing fire and destruction all along the north coast until her rage abated. Still hankering for a kingdom, she tried to capture the great city of Palanthas but was defeated. Eventually she reached Kernaf with her fleet. She massacred the natives living there, peaceful fishing folk, and proclaimed herself queen.”
“A proper monster,” said Howland. “Was she ever brought to justice?”
Raika shook her head. “Not in the way you mean, but she did meet a hard fate. She grew older and infirm, but she was still a hard-driving taskmaster. When the War of the Lance broke out, Artavash led her fleet against the draconian invaders. She perished along with most of her ships, but the draconians had to abandon the conquest of Kernaf.”
“They still revere her there,” Ezu added. “There is a colossal copper statue of her in the harbor, bright red metal despite years of weather and sea spray.”
“How can that be?” asked Robien. “Copper usually turns green when exposed to sun and rain.”
“The pirates set their prisoners to polishing it,” explained Ezu.
“When I get home, I’ll ask about this Gramdene,” Raika said. “Handsomest man in the world, ha! Everyone knows the best-looking men come from Saifhum!”
“Like Enjollah?” Ezu teased.
“Enjollah is a fine figure of a man but not handsome.” Raika looked thoughtful. “He has other qualities.”
The three men raised their eyebrows.
“He’s an excellent … navigator,” Raika said stiffly.
The men said nothing.
By dawn the gray peaks of the mountains were in sight. Howland and company encountered more traffic here: wagons laden with iron ingots, escorted by rough-looking hired cavalry. When asked, they denied working for the Throtian Guild. Most of them were independent workmen, they said, hauling iron to dealers in Sanction and Neraka. Listening between the wagoneers’ words, Howland deduced the Throtian Mining Guild was an outlaw operation, despised by legitimate miners and merchants.
The western slopes of the mountains were dotted with pits and tunnels of iron mines. The party rode south, working their way along the foothills, inquiring after Rakell and the Throtian concern. No one had any information more substantial than “they’re south of here” or “try farther south.” Two days passed until they got their first serious lead—a burned-out caravan of six ore carts. Bodies littered the ravine, and they’d not been dead long. Some were laborers in coarse woolens, while others were lean, rangy men in mismatched armor, just like the ones who filled the ranks of Rakell’s bandit army.
“What happened here?” Raika wondered. “Was it the dragon?”
Robien looked over the scene. “Not a dragon or rival bandits—rebellion. The slaves rose up and attacked their captors.”
“How do you know that?” she asked.
The bounty hunter’s practiced eye roved over the scene. “The horses are gone, but not the arms.”
Desperate slaves attacked their guards, took their horses and the ones pulling the carts, and rode hard for freedom. A red dragon would have slaughtered men and beasts indiscrimately. Victorious robbers would have stripped the fallen riders of all their arms and armor. Had the guards taken matters into their own hands, they would not have left their dead comrades by the trail.
It was a simple matter to backtrack the caravan to its source. The trail led up a narrow, winding canyon, penetrating deep into the foothills. As darkness fell, Howland halted his comrades short of the mine.
“Better to enter by day,” he said. “Tonight, rest. I’ll go ahead and scout around.”
Robien gave his reins to Ezu and slid off to the ground. “Let me go. This is my sort of job.”
Howland agreed, and Robien went ahead on foot. The others withdrew up the hillside a hundred yards, camping behind a hedge of boulders. Since they couldn’t afford to light a fire and give away their position, they ate cold rations. Raika, unaccustomed to the mountain chill, wrapped herself in one of Caeta’s homemade blankets and went to sleep.
Howland sat with a naked sword on his lap. As he did most nights, he half-slept, resting but alert to any stray sign or sound. Long after Raika had begun snoring and he’d closed his eyes, he heard Ezu rise.
Opening one eye, he saw the traveler had changed clothes. Draped head to toe in charcoal-colored robes, Ezu was almost invisible against the rocky hillside.
“Going somewhere?” Howland rumbled.
Ezu seemed genuinely surprised, turning to peer at the old soldier through his tinted spectacles.
“I thought you were asleep!”
“It’s an old trick that kept me alive on many a campaign.” He shifted the sword off his knees, laying it on the ground by his right hand. “Where are you going this time of night?”
Ezu tapped his special glasses. �
�Darkness is no barrier to me,” he said, smiling.
He moved toward the gap in the boulders that led down the hill to the trail. Howland was up in a flash, blocking the traveler’s way.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you since leaving Nowhere,” Howland said quietly. “You have an astonishing ability to appear and disappear just when you’re needed most. How is that, Ezu?”
“Travel is not easy. The world is full of cruel and dangerous people, you know. This one has cultivated many ways of getting by.”
“When we first found you, you were trussed up, waiting to be rescued. How is it no one since has been able to hold you?”
“I learn from my experiences.”
Howland frowned. “Old Marren said you blinded everyone in Rakell’s camp the night we were there. How? You were separated from us, taken by Rakell, but he didn’t harm a hair on your head. He murdered Marren. Why didn’t he hurt you?”
“This one removed himself from Rakell’s presence.”
“But not for more than a day.” Howland presented the point of his sword to Ezu’s chest. “I’ve figured it out, partly. The lynching party was right all along. You are a spy.”
“How can you say that, after I’ve helped you?” Ezu asked.
Howland stepped closer, keeping his sword point over Ezu’s heart. “Yes, that threw me for a time, then I realized the truth. Rakell wasn’t the real master of this scheme. There’s a mastermind behind everything, a lord whom you serve, too. Rakell blundered when he chose to remain at the village, fighting. It furthered your master’s scheme, which was to get rid of Rakell.”
Ezu held up both hands, like a petty thief caught by a shopkeeper. “You’re a wise man, Howland. This guise of mine, Ezu the traveler, is a pretense—but you’re wrong about one thing. I am not a spy.”
Howland pushed his blade forward, pricking Ezu ever so slightly. The strange foreigner grimaced but held his ground.
“What lies at the end of this trail?” Howland demanded, voice rising.
“Just another pebble on the path of life, my friend.”
Howland leaned on his blade. He only meant to cut Ezu a little, to wipe the smug tone from his answers. Instead of flesh and blood resistance, Howland found himself blundering forward, passing through thin air where Ezu had been standing. His sword clanged loudly against a rock. Raika awakened, grasping for the weapon she no longer carried.
“Howland?” she said, bleary with sleep.
“I regret parting this way.” Ezu’s voice came from behind. Whirling, Howland saw the traveler’s silhouette against the stars. He was standing atop a boulder a good twenty feet high. No one could have climbed up there so quickly.
“I would have liked to have seen your journey through to its end,” Ezu continued, “but I cannot be fending off swords every time I chose to go wandering. Farewell, Howland uth Ungen.” He bowed his head. “And to you, lady. When you meet Gramdene of Kernaf, remember it was I who first told you his name.”
“Ezu!” Howland rushed to the foot of the boulder. Before he reached it, the traveler’s black outline had merged into the night.
Raika got up, scratching her matted hair. “What just happened?” she said, spicing her question with a few favorite expletives.
Howland explained his suspicions and his theory that Ezu had been working for the same boss as Rakell.
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
He was no longer sure. Indeed he felt a little foolish and ashamed of having driven Ezu off.
Raika went to the boulder where Ezu vanished. She’d seen him do amazing things, but he had never disappeared in plain sight before.
“Will he return, do you think?
“I take him at his word. He won’t be back,” Howland said.
They leaned their backs against the boulder and gazed at their quiet, empty campsite. It suddenly seemed much darker and colder than before. Like a ghostly mask, the single moon peered between the mountain peaks. Howland felt suddenly and strangely bereft.
“I wronged him.”
Raika shook her head. “Your reasoning was sound. I would have agreed with you had I been awake.” She folded her arms. “Who was he, really? A wizard? A spirit? A god?”
“There are no gods,” Howland said firmly. “They abandoned us.”
They returned to their respective blankets. Before Raika lay down again, she saw something glinting in the moonlight. Curious, she groped in the shadows and found Ezu’s saffron spectacles.
“Look here! Did he forget these?”
“I don’t think so.” Howland took the glasses and tried them on. “However silly he acts, I don’t think Ezu does anything by accident.” He drew in his breath sharply when he saw the mountain around them as clearly as if it were day. Removing the spectacles carefully he said, “These must be his parting gift for Robien.”
“Why him?”
“I need nothing now, and he’s already given you a present.”
“What?”
“He named your future husband for you, didn’t he?”
“Who?” Raika said incredulously.
“The pirate king of Kernaf, Gramdene— ‘the handsomest man in the world’.”
Raika tried to laugh Howland’s assertion aside, but the forced merriment expired in her throat. Could it be true? Was she destined to be Gramdene’s wife?
Howland put the spectacles in his saddlebag. He would give them to Robien when he returned. As for Raika, thoughts of her future mate kept her awake for almost an hour.
At first light, Howland and Raika resumed their ride up the narrow valley. Howland expected Robien back by dawn, but the sun was over the mountain, and the elf was still gone. Yet the valley was remarkably quiet and calm. Raika was the nervous one. She rode alongside Howland with spear in hand, warily watching the heights above them.
As they ascended into the cleft of the mountain, they noticed signs of recent violence. They came across wrecked carts, abandoned equipment, and dead bodies, both slave and bandit. Not all were human. A pair of ogres, overcome by scores of small wounds, lay side by side atop a flat boulder. Evidently they’d made a stand against a large number of opponents before succumbing. More curious were the slain dwarves they found in overturned wagons. They were prosperously turned out, but no one had bothered to plunder them. Judging by their injuries, they were felled when a hail of stones knocked them senseless. Their horses had gone wild, turning over the conveyances. If the impact had not killed the dwarves, their cargo had. Every wheeled vehicle was laden with scores of bright metal ingots. Several hundred lay scattered on the trail for more than a mile.
“Iron or steel?” Raika wondered.
Howland dismounted and picked up a hefty bar. He rapped the ingot with a handy stone, and it made a dull sound.
“Pig iron. Why would fleeing dwarves fill their carts with pig iron?” he mused.
Three plumes of smoke rose from the plateau ahead. As they rounded the bend, Raika spotted someone on the path. She pulled back on her reins and warned Howland.
He drew up beside her. “No, it’s all right. It’s Robien.”
The Kagonesti was standing in the cart path, gazing at the scene. Raika and Howland rode slowly ahead until they reached him. Robien did not look up when they stopped on either side of him.
“Good morning,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t come back, but I thought I’d better keep watch here. I knew you’d come eventually.” He lowered the sword from his shoulder and shoved it into its scabbard.
Raika and Howland got down, tying their mounts to a convenient sapling. Howland gave Raika a spare sword from the bundle on the pack horse. She buckled it around her hips. With Robien leading the way, they entered the silent camp.
A rough stockade of pine logs had been erected around the mine works, but many of the sharpened timbers had been toppled. They had been broken down from the inside, as every one lay with their crowns pointing outward. Inside the fence, all was chaos. Great heaps of cinders and slag, sti
ll smoldering, lay alongside the central path. The air stank of coke and sulfur.
“Is there anyone alive here?” Howland wondered.
“Someone’s stirring. I heard him last night,” said Robien. “I never caught up with them, and I decided to wait until you arrived.”
A second dirt road crossed the first at right angles. They stood at the crossroads, taking in the scene. On their right was a massive furnace house made of local timber and stone. Two tall chimneys, one broken off to half the height of the other, still gave off smoke. The upper half of the broken chimney had come down on the roof of the furnace house, smashing it wide open. The wooden part of the structure had been reduced to charred wood, and the stone walls were blackened on the inside. Outside the furnace house were scores of abandoned wheelbarrows, some empty, some full and lying on their sides, spilling coal or dull red ore on the ash-covered ground.
To the left stood a number of plank and canvas huts, the kind used by an army on campaign. Most were trampled and torn. A few had been torched. Beyond them was a rail-fence stockade full of conical hide tents. The front of the stockade lay flat on the ground, facing outward.
The newcomers walked through the ruined camp. Now and then one or the other would stop to examine some trace, some relic, or some body. By the time they reached the shattered stockade, it was clear what had happened.
“The slaves must have revolted,” Howland said, pointing to the conical tents. “They were housed here. At some point they rushed the stockade and broke it down. They rampaged out, demolishing the outer camp where their captors lived.”
“Interested only in flight, they stole every animal they could find and fled,” Robien added.
“Who brought down the chimney, I wonder?” Raika said.
“Who knows?” Howland said. “Maybe the black gang did it as part of the rebellion.”
Everywhere they found signs of struggle, destruction, and a hasty departure. Near the mouth of the mine they found a sturdier, more finished building, built in the fashion of a dwarven mountain hall. Every window was shuttered with thick, seasoned planks, but they had been breached nonetheless. The big, iron-strapped door was off its hinges, stove in by a salvaged timber used as a makeshift battering ram.
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