He yawned as he approached. "Has something happened?"
That was it. Gosha's wife might have badgered him into taking his youngest son along, but he would not suffer the adolescent gladly. "Something happen?" he screamed. "I've only been run into by a cart, spilling fruit all over the road! And that's besides gaining a so-called good-luck demon—" His voice died in his throat. Should he have even mentioned Hotpoint? The magician stared at the wagon seat where Hotpoint sat.
"I don't necessarily know if the 'good luck' part is true," Gosha added rapidly. "We only have the demon's word."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the mage replied disdainfully. "Good-luck demons? The fall must have shaken you more severely than you realized."
"Demons?" Lum pulled his hair from his eyes so he could look around. "Where? What do they look like? I don't see anything."
"What do you mean?" Gosha sputtered. They had both looked right at Hotpoint. Unless—
Unless only he could see the demon!
The merchant groaned. "Oh, the fall was worse than I thought! My head is spinning! My produce is smashed to the ground, my livelihood destroyed."
K'shew frowned. "Oh, come, come. I was about to give you something." He laughed and slapped his knee. "I have the very thing." He ran to his cart, suddenly spry. "This will take but a second, merchant. Then I must hurry, hurry off!"
He rummaged through the things piled high above the cart for a moment, then gave a cry of discovery. "The very thing!" he repeated as he grunted and pulled and brought forth a bushel basket filled with apples. Nice-looking fruit, Gosha thought, good shape, good size, except that every apple was silver.
"I had intended to sell these at Ithkar Fair myself," K'shew said. "Now I don't know if I'll have the chance." He held the bushel out to Gosha. "A fair exchange, I think, for your damaged merchandise. I might also be able to arrange a prime location for you to set up your wagon, right next to the temple, for a small fee, of course." K'shew glanced back up the road. "Then again, I think it might be time I moved along."
Gosha was astonished. Before he could think of anything to say, the magician hopped back in his cart and spurred his horse to a gallop. Soon Gosha could see nothing but a dust cloud receding down the road.
He looked at the apples. They shone in the sunlight as if they had a light of their own. He inhaled their subtle fragrance, sweet yet tart. It made his mouth water. He wanted to hold one in his hand, to lift it to his mouth, to sink his teeth through that shining skin, to taste—
Gosha closed his eyes and turned away from the bushel. These apples weren't for eating, at least not by him. He was quite sure that, for every apple he consumed, an equal or greater amount of gold should never reach his pockets.
"Lum!" he called. "Salvage what you can from the ground, and find a place for these!"
He passed the bushel to his son. Lum struggled under the weight but finally managed to load the apples into the back of the wagon. Gosha smiled. Today even his misfortunes had happy conclusions. He may have exaggerated a bit when he had yelled at the magician; at most, perhaps, one-tenth of his produce was ruined. And how much more would he make by selling the silver apples? Truly, he was the luckiest man in all the world!
"Exactly as I predicted!" Hotpoint smiled at him. "With a good-luck demon at your side, how can you fail?"
Gosha frowned. Maybe the demon was right after all. It was hard to feel warmth for a creature whose clothes and skin were a matching blue, but Gosha at least climbed back into the seat next to him.
"Ah, those apples," Hotpoint said softly. "Each apple like a separate silver star. No one else in all Ithkar Fair will have their like. Now, friend Gosha, you have not only the finest produce from the Zoe Valley, but the most precious fruit in all the world. With goods like that, you hardly need luck at all."
Gosha allowed himself to smile at last. Maybe the demon was lucky after all. Perhaps he had entered a realm of good fortune so magnificent that it allowed the creature to appear. Perhaps he would be lucky from this day forward, the luckiest man in history.
It was then he saw the rider.
Hotpoint excused himself and hopped back into the wagon.
The horse and rider approached them from the direction the magician had come, moving twice as fast as the mage. The horse was jet black, a huge beast that, as fast as it was approaching, seemed to be moving more at a canter than a gallop. And if the beast was twice a horse, the man atop seemed double-sized as well. He wore robes as dark as the horse or darker, the color of a storm at night. But his face was the palest white, almost as if his skin were transparent and the color of the bone shone through. There seemed to be no noise but the horse's hooves, the sound of thunder rolling toward Gosha and his wagon.
The dark rider reined in his horse as he came abreast of the wagon, and then there was no noise at all. The rider stared at Gosha for a moment through the silence.
"Merchant!" the rider called, in a voice oddly slow and high, as if the large man seldom found a use for it. "Have you passed anyone else on this road?" The rider's eyes looked straight into Gosha's. The rider's eyes were the color of blood. Gosha's tongue felt dry in his mouth. He wanted to speak, but his lips would not part.
Lum jumped from the wagon's rear. "Yes, sir!" he cried. "A chubby gray fellow."
The rider smiled a death's-head grin. "Indeed. Did he say anything as he passed?"
Lum laughed. "He ran his cart right into our wagon."
"You must tell me more." The dark rider dismounted.
Gosha was horrified. He should have spoken up, insisted that no one had passed, and sent the rider on his way. But his idiot son had to feel talkative and prompt the rider to stay. Somehow, Gosha thought, the longer the rider stayed, the worse it would be for Lum and himself.
And where, perchance, was Hotpoint the good-luck demon? Gosha heard rustling noises from within the wagon at his back.
The dark rider approached. "Men call me N't'g'r'x."
Gosha's mouth dropped open again. Never had he heard a name with so many apostrophes. If K'shew, with only one apostrophe, had been a magician of some importance, what station must this dark rider hold? He shivered and cursed the day he learned spelling so that he might worry about such a thing.
"There is a demon here," N't'g'r'x whispered.
Gosha found his voice at last. He wasn't going to let anybody, even if he were to look like death itself, take his demon away. "Demons here?" He tried to laugh, but there was no conviction in it. "I am but a simple fruit merchant."
"So is the man who collided with your wagon," N't'g'r'x replied. "Or so he would like the fair-wards of Ithkar to believe."
K'shew a fruit merchant? Gosha shook his head in disbelief. Still, that would explain why he carried apples in his cart, even though the appples were silver. And he'd given the fruit to a competitor, with hardly any argument at all! Gosha wondered if all the merchants at Ithkar Fair were as just.
N't'g'r'x still watched him. Gosha marveled at just how much the dark rider did look like death itself. He cleared his throat. "K'shew said he was a magician."
N't'g'r'x waved the idea aside with one of his bony hands. "He brags about his demon line, but 'tis a minor piece of work. K'shew says many things. Did he give you anything?"
Gosha's heart sank. He would lose not only his good-luck demon, but his silver fruit as well. Perhaps he could deny receiving the apples from the mage, if only his son would stay quiet. Gosha shot a stern look in Lum's direction.
Lum saw Gosha's cautionary glare and nodded happily. "Yes, good sir," he said to N't'g'r'x. "For damaging our stock, the mage gave us a basket of silver apples."
"Silver apples?" The dark rider laughed, the sound of bones shaken in a coffin. "K'shew always was a rogue."
Gosha's heart fell lower still. Soon it should lodge in his foot. Why didn't his son just take the silver apples and give them to this rider?
"Wait a second," Lum said. "I'll get them for you."
Gosha cried out and fell back into the wagon. Perhaps his heart would pass from his body entirely, to fall among the apples and pears.
With his head atop the fruit, the merchant could hear the rustling sound again. Except, in the quiet of the wagon, it no longer sounded like rustling. It sounded like chewing.
"Hotpoint!" Gosha sat bolt upright. He dug furiously into the produce.
"Don't bother me when I've got my mouth full!" came the muffled reply from somewhere down at the end of the cart. A chill.shook the length of Gosha's body. It was the end that held the silver apples.
And the apples drew the merchant's eye. They glowed, even here, away from the daylight. They shone so, he had to touch them and feel the smoothness of their skins. What would it be like to bite into one of them? Would the juice be warm and sweet, heated by the apple's glow?
Gosha could bear it no longer. A demon was destroying his goods, while outside a stranger who looked like death was engaged in animated conversation with his dullard son. What more did he have to live for? He would eat those silver apples, every one! Gosha hurled himself across the wagon, his mouth open to accept the fruit.
The fruit, however, seemed to be otherwise inclined. As Gosha skidded across the top of the produce mound, apples shifted, grapes squeezed, pears bounced, dates rolled. The wagon lurched as fruit pushed toward the rear with such force that Gosha heard the tearing of wood along the wagon's backboard. The board gave way, and he found himself lost in an avalanche.
He pushed himself free and found he was facing Hotpoint. The demon looked somewhat heavier than before. Hotpoint belched.
"I thought you were a good-luck demon!" Gosha cried.
"Ah," said Hotpoint happily. "But I did not mention good luck for whom!"
A dark shadow fell across both demon and merchant. Gosha turned to see N't'g'r'x. The dark man made four passes in the air, adding three noises that might have been words had they been spoken by anybody else.
Hotpoint disappeared.
Gosha yelped.
A skeletal hand appeared before his face.
"Let me help you up," N't'g'r'x intoned.
"Surely," replied Gosha. The man's grip was like ice.
"K'shew was a fruit merchant," N't'g'r'x answered the question in Gosha's eyes. "I am a wizard."
Gosha swallowed and instructed his son to pick up what fruit could be saved. He thought to ask another question. All he could manage was, "But why?"
"K'shew was not just a simple fruit-seller. For years, he has been the largest fruit merchant at Ithkar Fair, with twenty times the produce of other peddlers. Such a large discrepancy between businesses brought him to the attention of certain officials. We are very careful that everything remain honest at the fair. And K'shew's dealings seemed honest enough. But outside the fair"—the dark rider laughed—"you have seen a different story."
"So he tried to cheat me?" Gosha asked.
"More than that. When you crossed the sorcerous line K'shew had managed to draw over almost every road leading to Ithkar, a demon appeared in your wagon, intent upon destroying your goods. But could K'shew stop there? No, he had to give you magic apples, and those silver apples smell of sorcery even from this distance. If you had shown up at the gate with either demons or apples, they would have turned you away for illegal sorcery, and you would never have been allowed to participate in the fair again."
N't'g'r'x intertwined his bony fingers. "K'shew is a compulsive thief. His type often is. They don't know when to stop, and end up giving themselves away. I'm surprised he did not rent you a prime spot in the marketplace, right next to the temple. And you'd find the spot all right, under several feet of water, in the middle of the river Ith." N't'g'r'x laughed long and hard. It was not a pleasant sound.
An even more horrible noise erupted behind them. Lum stood, staring with horror at the silver apple in his hand. There was a bite out of it.
"This is vile!" he cried. "It tastes like a cross between vinegar and spoiled meat!"
"In an hour," the rider said as he remounted his horse, "your son shall have a stomachache as well." He reached within the folds of his dark cloak and threw something at Gosha's feet. When it hit the ground, the merchant heard the chink of metal.
"For your information on K'shew," N't'g'r'x called. "I go to catch the villain." And off he rode, like a dark leaf blown by the wind.
Lum got the remaining fruit loaded and climbed into the wagon front next to Gosha. The merchant took his son's complaints with a paternal stoicism. Horse and wagon climbed a hill, and at its summit they saw a great city in the distance, full of colored banners and gray-green spires.
"Ithkar," Gosha proclaimed.
Other roads joined theirs as they went down the hill to the city, and they soon fell into a procession of other carts and wagons, all on their way to the fair. The one behind them clanked with metal goods; cooking smells came from the one before. Gosha breathed them deeply, once again relaxed. He would have to send Lum back to the valley somewhat sooner than he had planned to bring more goods, but what he had should still sell quickly, and the money the dark rider had given him would surely more than make up the difference.
It had been a long and rather eventful day. Gosha sighed as the sun dipped below the horizon, and the towers of the city became dark silhouettes framed by violet clouds. Truly, he thought, I am the luckiest man in the world.
A QUIET DAY AT THE FAIR
Sharon Green
Massap was bored. He leaned one wide shoulder against a tent-post in the noonday sun, looked around without seeing anything worth looking at, and folded his arms against even greater boredom. There were certainly enough people visiting Ithkar Fair that year, as many as had been coming for the past few years, if not more, but being halfway through the second ten-day period seemed to have calmed them all. Most of them had been there since the very beginning of the fair, which meant they no longer rushed from booth to tent to wagon to stand, to gulp the sight of what was being offered. They now knew what was being offered and strolled around taking longer second or third or tenth looks at whatever interested them. They also knew they had as much time ahead of them as had already passed, so the burning need to get their last looks in hadn't come yet, either. Even the usual troublemakers seemed to have taken time off—or were staying out of Massan's way. If it were the latter, it proved the wisdom in hiring him that fair, but Massan had no interest just then in wisdom. With bronze-circled wrists hidden beneath folded arms, he looked slowly around at boredom and yawned.
"Hai, Massan, how goes it?" came a rough voice, announcing the approach of Trig through the easy crowd. The fair-ward was large and as rough as his voice, his brass helmet and bronze-bound quarterstaff adding to the imposing sight, yet he made no attempt to clap hand to the other man's shoulder. Massan didn't care for overfamiliarity and wasn't one to oppose even though he stood supposedly unarmed. Thank the Three Lordly Ones he had been made a ward captain this fair!
"It goes slowly, Trig," Massan returned, his gray eyes continuing their movement, his deep voice as easy as the crowd—and as potentially dangerous. "P'raps next year I'll return to merely visiting."
"Naw, Massan, it'll grow brisk again, you'll see," Trig comforted, the sudden sweat on him having little to do with the warmth of the sun. For four years Massan had taken to appearing at the fair to either sell his sword or raise a company, and that was the first fair there wasn't trouble because of it. Every fighter on the continent seemed to have heard of Massan, and too many of them were damned fools who thought they could face him down without the great, sleek sword he surrendered at the gates without argument. If they came at him one at a time they ended no more than beaten to a pulp, but if they tried ganging—
"Say, Massan, you heard the latest?" Trig said with sudden brightening, his ugly face grinning as it looked up to the still moving gray eyes. "There's a reward been offered, and even fair-wards can claim it. How 'bout that?"
"A reward for what?" asked Massan, chuckling inwardly
at Trig's eagerness to distract him. The fair-ward was rough and almost completely unlettered—but he wasn't a fool.
"This lordling's daughter run off," returned Trig, sharing the news with a guffaw. "Don't want to do his bidding, she don't, so she up and run off. She's about the fair somewhere, they say, 'cause the gate wizards say she ain't passed through. Man who brings her back gets to claim the reward."
"Even if he's a fair-ward?" Massan asked, finally bringing those eyes to rest on Trig. "How dangerous is she supposed to be?"
"Dunno, but I don't much care," said Trig, his grin still strong as he raised his bronze-bound quarterstaff. "Got this to beat her off with, and somethin' else case I don't care to beat her off. Maybe she was just lonely and come out lookin' for company. A man keeps his eyes open, maybe he gets two rewards."
"She's probably fat and ugly with the temper of a faxit," Massan said with a grin for the other man's overoptimism. "Like as not we'll have to charge her with attacking you. If I hear you screaming, I'll come as fast as I can."
"If it ain't me doin' the screaming, just wander around a little first," Trig guffawed, his hopes refusing to be dashed. "See you later."
Massan nodded as the other man turned away to move slowly off into the crowd, watching Trig look the throng over. He hadn't asked how they were supposed to recognize the runaway, as it was highly unlikely that they would find her unless she brought herself to their attention—assuming the story was true. Something about it didn't sound quite right, something Massan couldn't put his finger on—
And then he straightened away from the post he had been leaning on, unfolding his arms as his eyes narrowed. Trig, watching the people all about rather than where he was going, had had a small collision. The incident was unusual enough to make the fair-ward surprised rather than angry; no one jostled fair-wards on purpose, and rarely even by accident.
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 7