Truth and Deception cogd-4

by Alastair J. Archibald

  As if reading the Questor's mind, the General said, "I'd sooner be on open ground, but I don't think we've too much to worry about, Baron Grimm. After all, it's a town, not a war zone."

  As if to mock Quelgrum's hubris, a knot of men, maybe fifteen strong, stepped out of one of the side alleys, blocking the way. Like the watchmen at the gate, they wore a patchwork of armour, and they all carried notched but serviceable weapons: swords, axes, and pikes among them.

  "You boys doing a little shopping?" Quelgrum said, his voice sounding easy and untroubled. "Or are you just sightseeing?"

  A grubby, grey-haired, scarred man, whom Grimm supposed must be the leader of this group of bravoes, stepped forward, his hand on the hilt of an ancient-looking cutlass in a simple leather scabbard.

  "Shoppin', it looks like. Nice wagon you got here, friend; if'n you'll gift-wrap it for us, I fink we'll take it."

  "Well, friend," the soldier said, "I really don't think you can afford it, so I think we'll just mark it down as 'No Sale', if it's all the same to you."

  "I fink you c'n do a little better than that, old feller. What say you give us the cart, and mebbe a bit extra, and we give you your lives? Sounds like a good deal to me. Whatcher got in the back?"

  "Trouble, friend." The General pulled a string that collapsed the wagon's canvas cover to reveal Crest, Harvel, Tordun, Guy and Numal. "Gentlemen, we've got company. Would you care to introduce yourselves?"

  The three warriors and the two mages climbed out of the vehicle, and Grimm could swear that the raiding party's leader blanched at the sight of the mighty albino drawing himself to his full, impressive height, even though the heavy coat of grime on the man's face made it difficult to tell.

  "The market's closed, boys," Quelgrum breathed, "so why don't you just make your way home, and we'll say no more about it?"

  The Questor smiled at the expressions of doubt and dismay on the faces of several of the ruffians, and at the susurration of worried voices amongst them as they gaped at each other with wide eyes. However, it seemed that the scarred, older brigand was made of sterner stuff. Silencing his chattering underlings with a wave of the hand, he smiled.

  "My, ain't you got a pretty collection o'friends. So 'ave I."

  Putting two grimy fingers into his mouth, he emitted a piercing whistle, and Grimm spun around to see another group of men emerging from an alley behind them, weapons at the ready. It was as he had feared; they were trapped.

  Quelgrum stepped down from the wagon, his eyes hooded, dangerous. As he approached the leader of the group, the scarred bravo drew his sword.

  "That's far enough, mate; no need to be a bloody hero, is there? There's seven o'you and thirty of us. Even wiv the big white feller, it's still not very good odds, is it? Now, why don't you just hand over what you've got, and we'll call it quits, eh?"

  "Over my dead body," the General said, through gritted teeth.

  "Sounds a fair price to me, old-timer. GET 'EM, LADS!"

  As the raiders surged forward, Grimm shouted, "Redeemer, to me!" and his staff flew to his hand as he flung himself down from the vehicle.

  Crest ran forward and unleashed his deadly whip, lashing it into the attacking horde. Several men fell, dropping their weapons and clutching their eyes as the snake-like weapon did its work.

  The young Questor realised that although the narrow street made escape impossible, it also worked against the attackers, since they could not attack en masse. He stepped forward, brandishing Redeemer and braining three men in one stroke. Another ruffian made the mistake of trying to grab the staff, and fell twitching to the ground. A true Mage Staff was much more than a status symbol; it was also a dangerous weapon.

  Quelgrum's leathery, liver-spotted right fist shot forward, catching a bold raider on the jaw and felling him. The leader of the group struggled to bring his sword into play, hampered as he was by the crush of men around him, and the General's hand, fingers locked into the form of a blade, stabbed into the expanse of flesh under the ruffian's breastbone. The man collapsed, fighting for breath and dropping his weapon. With that, the brief battle was over, as the remainder of the able-bodied attackers dispersed and fled as best they could.

  Grimm looked behind him to see a number of fallen ruffians. Harvel's sword dripped with blood, and Tordun waved his own red-stained broadsword, bellowing defiance at the few retreating raiders. Guy looked cool and calm, and Numal was pale-faced but uninjured, his mage staff raised over his head.

  "Well, that wasn't too bad, was it?" Quelgrum said to Grimm in a cheerful voice. The General grasped the gasping, retching leader of the attackers by the neck and hauled him upright, so that the two men's faces met.

  "This is your lucky day, scum," the old soldier breathed. "Tangling with us should have been the last mistake you ever made in your miserable life but, against my better judgement, I'll let you live. Perhaps I'm getting sentimental in my old age, but just be thankful for it. Just tell everyone you meet that nobody messes around with us. Take a good look," he said, taking the man's lower jaw in his hand and twisting it around, "and just remember that we didn't even break into a sweat here. You're honoured. I don't usually waste my time brawling with amateurs-I just kill them like the vermin they are. In your case, I'll make a rare exception, so you can advise your pathetic friends to forget trying to make a quick fortune. Now, is that understood, dung-heap?"

  The hapless man struggled in vain against the soldier's iron grip. "I ain't afeared o-"

  His head rocked as Quelgrum swept his right hand back in a vicious arc across the assailant's face, maintaining a firm hold on his jerkin with the other.

  "Answer the question, vermin. I asked you if you understood what I said."

  "Understood, Cap'n," muttered the ruffian, wiping a bloody drool from the corner of his mouth.

  "That's 'General', rat, and don't forget it." The military man hauled the dangling wretch closer to him, until the two men's noses almost met. His eyes glittered with what Grimm took to be maniacal blood-lust held in check by an adamantine will-or, perhaps, that was just the impression the soldier sought to create.

  "My name is Sleafel Quelgrum," the General hissed, "although some know me better as 'General Q'. You may have heard that name, but if you haven't, you'd better ask around. Your friends, if you have any real friends, which I doubt, may tell you that I eat my enemies after defeating them. However, that's not true; I'm picky about what I eat."

  His upper lip curled, and his nose wrinkled in an expression of pure disgust as he tossed the raider to the flagstones.

  "If you ever cross me or my companions again, I'll leave you in the gutter for your vermin brethren to eat, instead. Now make yourself scarce, ordure."

  The General punctuated his last order with a boot to the unfortunate attacker's rear end as the man scrambled to his feet. With a last yelp, the thug staggered into a side alley.

  All Grimm could hear was the soft moaning of a few maimed men. With some satisfaction, he saw the attacker who had foolishly tried to grab Redeemer sitting, quivering, by the side of the road, his eyes vacant. He felt pleased that he had managed to curb his instinct to expend his magical power in a profligate manner, and gratified that he had felled three raiders with a single, swift blow of his staff.

  "That was just getting interesting," Tordun complained, cleaning his red-stained blade on a fallen man's jerkin. "It's a shame they had no staying power."

  Grimm rolled his eyes. "So much for not starting any trouble, General."

  "We didn't, Lord Baron; we just finished it. There was no diplomatic way out of that, believe me. Perhaps we'll get a little respect around here from now on."

  Grimm sighed. After this little scuffle, any self-respecting ruffian in Yoren will be lusting for our blood, he thought. Still, perhaps we'll get a little co-operation when we ask for information concerning the Sisters' whereabouts.

  "Right! Let's mount up and move on!" the General cried. "There must be somewhere to stay around here, although I'
d sleep with a dagger under my pillow if I were you."

  We've been in Yoren ten minutes, and we've already been in a fight, Grimm thought. That doesn't bode well for the rest of our time here. Oh, well, I can't say I wasn't warned.

  Let's just hope we can get some information quickly and move on. I don't want to have to stay here a moment longer than necessary.

  Nonetheless, as the wagon rolled past, or over, bodies of the fallen, into the grey centre of the town, he felt a certain satisfaction in the way the team-his team-had performed when threatened. It wouldn't do to take Yoren lightly, but Grimm felt confident that, if this was the strongest resistance the group would face in the town, he and his companions would prevail.

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  Chapter 25: Sightseeing

  As General Quelgrum drove the wagon into the centre of Yoren, Grimm noted that even the sun had fled into hiding behind gathering clouds, making the dilapidated town seem even more depressing. There was a market square of sorts, but, instead of bright stalls with enthusiastic barkers crying the quality of their wares, the mage saw only a few shabby kiosks with long queues of dowdy folk, their eyes fixed on the ground before them as each waited his or her turn.

  "I think it'd be better if we camped out on the plain tonight, General," Grimm said. "I'm worried I'll catch something if we stay here."

  "I've stayed in worse billets than this, Lord Baron," the old soldier replied, and Grimm shot him a quizzical glance, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Well; not too many, I'll have to admit, and not without an army to back me up. Perhaps you're right.

  "Still, I wonder what we're going to do with the wagon and our baggage while we wander around town. We're going to have to get out and walk at some point. Even in a place like this, I imagine that secure lodgings can be bought for some price."

  "I could put a magical ward around it, if necessary; a spell proof against any physical incursion," Grimm suggested.

  "And that's a nice, simple spell, is it?"

  The General's expression was neutral, but Grimm detected a slight but undeniable note of disbelief in his tone.

  The Questor thought back to the climactic battle in Crar, when he and his companions had faced a maniacal horde of mindless attackers driven by the will of the demon, Starmor. Questor Dalquist had raised a small ward against the zombie-like horde, one a fraction of the size of that needed to protect the wagon. The spell drained Dalquist of most of his energy in the space of a few minutes. Grimm knew from his tuition in Spell Theory that the energy required for such a sleight was proportional to the cube of its radius. Dalquist's ward had been maybe six feet in diameter. A spell to protect the vehicle would need to be perhaps three times that size; twenty-seven times the energy would be required.

  Still greater additional energy expenditure would be involved in casting the spell at a distance-this time, a square relationship applied. Dalquist had been three feet from the periphery of the spell's effect; to move a mere ten yards from the protected wagon would multiply the energy cost of the spell by a factor of a hundred. His fellow mage had maintained his ward for maybe three minutes; every additional minute would add to the energy cost. Grimm knew he was more powerful than Dalquist, but not thousands of times stronger. Even if Questor Guy agreed to share the workload, the scheme was unfeasible.

  Dalquist hid the Eye of Myrrn, the Guild periapt at the heart of that particular Quest, in an extra-dimensional cubby-hole. Once an object was hidden in such a location, only minimal energy was required to keep it there. However, Grimm knew the energy required to create and maintain such a hiding-place was again proportional to the cube of its radius.

  The Eye was only four inches across. If I were to scale a similar spell up to twenty feet or so, I'd need two hundred and… two hundred and sixteen thousand times the energy.

  After a few moments' cogitation, he shrugged. "Bad idea, General; please forget I mentioned it."

  "Mentioned what?" The soldier's tone was as good-natured as ever as he steered the horses around a knot of people, who seemed to be queuing for bread and quite oblivious of the approach of the large wagon.

  Bringing the vehicle to a halt, Quelgrum called out to the huddled crowd. "Excuse me! Can you direct us to a lodging-house; preferably a good one, with a secure barn or stables?"

  Most of the people ignored the General's cry, but one ragged man looked up. "Whassit worth t'find out?"

  "Two silvers," Quelgrum offered.

  "Gerroff! That won't even buy me a bloody loaf o' bread here! Two gold, an' yer in bizness. I know a good, clean, posh place, wiv stables 'n' ev'ryfing! I'll tell yer fer two gold. Thass me only offer, take it or leave it."

  "One fifty."

  "You deaf, or sumfink? I said two! Ask me again, 'n' it's two fifty, mate."

  Grimm handed the General four gold coins. "Ask him about Lizaveta's coterie," he whispered. "Perhaps we won't need this mythical paradise, after all."

  "All right, two gold," the General said to the scruffy man. "Assuming you can guide us to a clean, decent place with secure stables.

  "However, if you can tell us about a party of nuns who may have come through here recently, I'll give you four. That seems a pretty good bargain to me."

  The ragged man stared at Quelgrum's open hand and its golden bounty. Wearing a smile that exposed a mouthful of multi-coloured, rotting teeth, he stepped out of the milling crowd and approached the wagon.

  Grimm defocused his eyes and engaged his Sight; he wanted to be sure that any information given was true.

  "You ain't stiffin' me, are yer, guv'nor? Four gold if I tell yer what yer want ter know?"

  "If it's worth buying," the General warned him. "I'm not paying a penny for third-hand hearsay."

  Grimm scanned the man's aura, finding it the most complex he had ever seen; instead of sheets or streaks of solid colour, he saw a confusing, flowing melange of mental states. Avarice, mixed with distrust, fought for position against brief, furtive islands of basic honesty and boldness. Envy mixed and melded with respect.

  "Well, I ain't goin' ter lie to yer, guv'nor," the man said, his eyes flicking back and forth in a furtive manner, his voice low and conspiratorial. "I c'n only tell yer what I 'eard, but I did get it straight from me bruvver Jory. E told me there was a party o' nuns 'ere a couple o' weeks ago, prob'ly lookin' for somewhere nice to stay, just like you. One of 'em was a pretty little fing, an' 'e winked at 'er. Jory says she gave 'im this evil look. Next fing 'e knows, 'e's on 'is knees, beggin' forgiveness. There was this ugly old cow in charge 'o these nuns, and 'e 'ad to kiss 'er ring, like. Says 'e was in a right old state, didn't even know what 'e was doin' or sayin'."

  That sounds like Lizaveta's gentle coterie, Grimm thought. "Did your brother say which way the nuns were heading?" he asked.

  "Jory says they went up to the Mansion 'Ouse. That's the place I were goin' ter tell you about. It's a right posh old place ter stay; too rich fer the likes o' Jory and me, but I reckon it'd suit gents like you down to the ground."

  "Where is this Mansion House?" Quelgrum demanded.

  "Lemme see… ooh, it's right on the tip of me tongue… Funny 'ow your mind c'n just suddenly go all blank, ain't it?" The grubby oracle cast a meaningful look at the coins in the General's hand.

  "What do you reckon, Lord Baron? Is he telling the truth?"

  "As far as he knows it, I'm fairly sure he is, General," the Questor replied, in the same low voice. "He's confident about what he says."

  He rubbed his temple; scanning the Yorenian's confusing aura had given him a headache.

  "Here's two gold pieces for the information about the nuns. You get the other two when you give us clear directions to this Mansion House of yours." The General held out two of the shiny, yellow discs in his open left palm.

  The ragged informer hesitated for a moment. Then, as quick as thought, the coins disappeared. The man nodded, shaking particles loose from his shaggy-haired pate, which, Grimm thought, might have been either scurf o
r fleas. He hoped they were the former.

  "Awright, guv'nor, I'll tell yer; yer look like an honest sort t' me. Up ahead by the chandler's, there, you turn right into Dun Lane, then first left into Cheeble Street, see? Then yer take the third right into Goober Lane, an' then you'll come to the old market square. 'S not as nice as this new one, and there's some dodgy types round there, so you gents be careful."

  Grimm suppressed a shudder at the thought of any place less salubrious than this grimy hell-hole.

  "Now, from the old market," the Yorenian said, seeming to revel in his new, if temporary, career as a tourist guide, "yer need to look for old Rambold's glue shop on the far right side. You should be able to tell it from all the flies." He wrinkled his nose, and Grimm marvelled that a denizen of this benighted town could bear the capacity for disgust.

  "Yer go up that road past Rambold's; that's Bottle Pass. Go all the way t' the end o' that an' turn right inter Flobb's Lane. Turn left just past the Goat Inn, an' you'll see the Mansion 'Ouse up the 'ill. Got it, guv'nor?"

  Grimm felt bewildered by the complicated directions, but Quelgrum nodded.

  "Eminently clear; thank you for your assistance." The General tipped the remaining two coins into the shabby man's hand. "My apologies for taking up so much of your valuable time; enjoy your shopping."

  "Shoppin'? I'm goin' down the Blooter Arms fer a few pints first," the smiling vagabond declared. "Me bleedin' wife can wait a while fer 'er bleedin' groceries. Just remember, gents, if yer want any more 'elp, Guller's yer man. That's me name: Guller. Jest ask fer me in the Blooter Arms; they all know me there."

  With that, the shabby informer scampered into one of the dark alleys surrounding the square, and was gone.

  "The Mansion House it is," Grimm sighed. He did not hold out much hope for the Yorenian's luxurious description of the place; even a slaughterhouse might seem a palace to someone brought up in such depressing surroundings, but it did seem likely that someone there could provide further information on Lizaveta's movements.