by Anders, Lou
“What’s that? A mother goddess?” asked Karn.
“Cybelle,” said Fosco. “One of the old gods of the Gordion Empire.”
“Goddess of lions?”
“Wild animals. She’s the mountain mother. Also goddess of town and city walls, fertility, and corn.”
“I didn’t know Nelenians followed the old gods,” said Karn.
“We don’t. Anyway, I don’t.”
“Then why have it in your rooms?” Karn asked.
“It isn’t mine,” said Fosco. “Your friend Young Miss Thi bought it in the market.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Karn picked up the statue of Cybelle. “Thianna’s an Ymirian. They aren’t really fond of gods.”
“So what’s she doing with a statue of a goddess, then?”
“Isn’t that a good question?” said Karn.
—
“Whoever you are, you are not very good at this.”
Desstra was in the Old Market. It was a rough district in the eastern corner of the city, near a still-standing ancient Gordion coliseum. She was here to acquire a few final items that she needed for her evening’s performance—the plan she had persuaded Tanthal to let her put into effect. The stall before her sold cosmetics—jars of brazilwood chips soaked in rosewater, the rouge known as Lady’s Red Powder, tinctures of beeswax and oil to soften the lips.
Desstra lifted a hand mirror, pretending to study herself in it. Instead, she angled the mirror so that she could see over her shoulder. “Got you,” she said. There. About twenty paces away, in the shadow of a shop. Wearing a hooded robe despite the heat. Carrying some sort of staff wrapped in leather.
She’d spotted the same person several times already that afternoon. Twice might have been a coincidence, but in a place this size, more than twice meant hostile intentions. No question, she was being followed. The question was by whom. Not the city guard—the guard wouldn’t need to hide their presence. Not a pickpocket or cutpurse—a thief would have struck already. Not an assassin or spy, some rival organization of the Underhand—a professional wouldn’t be so easy to spot. This one hadn’t the skill for subterfuge. This one was sloppy. And working alone.
Desstra set the mirror down, to the disappointment of the stall’s vendor. She squared her shoulders and turned around. She marched across the market, straight toward the robed figure.
The hood swiveled back and forth, the figure pretending not to watch Desstra approach. Maybe he thought she would turn aside. He thought wrong.
Just before she closed, the figure darted away.
Desstra broke into a run.
The stranger was fast, even though an odd gait spoke to a limp or injury. But Desstra was faster.
The staff swung out, tipping a cart of potted plants over in her path. The little gnome shopkeeper ranted, shaking a fist after the robed figure. Desstra vaulted over both gnome and cart.
Her quarry headed south, into the narrow streets and dark shadows of the Castlebriar slums.
Desstra drew an egg sac from her pouch and lobbed it at the robed figure’s retreating back, but her aim was off. The sticky yellow foam dripped down the wall, useless and wasted.
Desstra reached the corner. Her ears twitched—a sixth sense warning of trouble even before she saw it. She flung herself backward, bent nearly double, the bright sky above stinging her eyes. The dagger nearly nipped her nose as it passed over her face. It clattered on the street.
When Desstra came upright, her throwing darts were in her hands. But there was no sign of her quarry.
She extended her ears, listening. Heard hurried footsteps to the right. Took the corners as fast as caution would allow.
The robed figure was just ahead.
Desstra pounded the cobbled street. Hurled a dart. It struck the robes but didn’t seem to hurt the person inside. Was there armor underneath?
The staff struck a rotting support and sent an awning crashing down in her path. When Desstra managed to get clear, the robed figure was gone.
She came out of the slums on the alley of a main street. A tattered robe lay at her feet, her own dart stuck in the dirty fabric.
The street was crowded with pedestrians. Gnomes, humans, wood elves, the fur-covered rodent-like beings known as murids. Merchants, beggars, fishmongers, servants on errands, townsfolk going about their business, farmers carrying produce to market, cargo on its way to the docks, a foreign soldier in weathered bronze and leather armor. Her quarry could be any one of them. Or none of them.
Desstra bent and retrieved her dart from the folds of the discarded robe.
“There you are,” said her teammate Velsa, as Desstra stood and resheathed her weapon. “Tanthal sent me to find you,” the other dark elf explained. “We’ve spotted the boy.”
“Good,” said Desstra. “It’s time we got this game under way.”
—
Karn spent the rest of the day scouting Castlebriar. He tried to ask quietly in shops and inns if anybody had seen a giant girl. It was hard to do that and not draw attention, but he needn’t have bothered. He got nowhere. He nosed around the docks looking for he didn’t know what. He went as far into the slums as he dared. But everywhere he was coming up empty.
By late afternoon, he returned to Fosco’s, tired, dejected, and bedraggled.
“Back so soon, kid?” The old gnome grinned as he wiped down dishes behind a bar in the common room. Karn nodded. “Just beating the streets?”
“I had to start somewhere,” Karn replied.
“No luck?”
“None.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Fosco frowned and set his hands on the bar top. “You know, under the law, an innkeeper is entitled to a tenant’s belongings should they turn up, well, dead.”
“She isn’t dead!” Karn roared. Fosco held up his hands placatingly.
“I’m not saying she is. I’m saying, don’t blame me for not saying anything right off. I was waiting an appropriate time before counting her out. But now you’re here. So I suppose I should just give it to you.”
“Give me what?”
Fosco bent under the bar and came up with a bundle in his arms. Karn stared at the worn brown bag.
“Thianna’s backpack! You have it!”
“I haven’t looked in it,” said Fosco defensively.
Karn snatched the pack. Unlacing the flap, he pulled it open. He saw some of Thianna’s familiar gear—cooking utensils and supplies, a bedroll, a change of clothing, as well as the phosphorescent stone that she kept on a cord. He was looking for any clue that might help him figure out where she had gone. Then he found a piece of folded parchment.
He flattened it on the table. It had just one line of writing, where someone had scratched a few Norrønian runes in charcoal.
“ ‘Leflin Greenroot,’ ” he read aloud. Karn looked at Fosco. “What’s a Leflin Greenroot? Is that a local plant?”
Fosco chuckled. “Sounds like a wood elf name to me. Greenroot, Brownfeet, Greentooth, Goldennose…They always go in for those kinds of names.”
“A wood elf. Do you know him?”
Fosco’s look let Karn know just how dumb the question was.
“Okay, Castlebriar is a big place. I get that. But how can I find him?”
Fosco drummed his fingers, thinking.
“Windy Willows,” he said. “Upstairs off a row of shops by the west gate. It’s a wood elf hangout. As good a starting place as any to find this Greenroot.”
“Thank you.” Karn shouldered the pack. His feet hurt from a day on the streets, but now he had new energy. He turned toward the door.
“I hope you find your friend, kid,” said Fosco.
“So do I,” he replied. “So do I.”
—
The music was at once haunting and beautiful. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Karn was fairly certain it was a stringed instrument, but the rich, resonant sound was like nothing he’d ever heard.
The room before him was subt
ly lit with candles, the light levels low. A smell of sandalwood was strong but not overpowering. He wished he had taken a bath at Fosco’s before heading out. The incense probably wasn’t strong enough to cover his own stench. Nothing to be done about it now.
All the elves in the room looked his way as he entered.
“Um, be healthy,” he said uncertainly to the sea of staring eyes.
“What else would we choose to be?” a woman with red-brown skin and waist-length hair replied. She laughed lightly and turned back to her conversation.
Not exactly inviting me in, thought Karn. But at least no one is trying to kill me.
“I’m looking for Leflin Greenroot,” he said tentatively to the elves at one table after another. No one replied.
This wood elf tavern was nothing like the noisy, stinky chaos of Stolki’s one great hall back in Bense. The arrangement of the inn felt very haphazard. Karn passed recessed nooks and curtained alcoves as he wound through the rooms. The floor wasn’t even all on the same level—each time he passed through a doorway, he had to step up or step down.
Several chambers in, Karn finally found a bar—a huge, polished wooden one that curved around the room in a half circle. It appeared to have been built out of a single piece of wood, though how they got it in he had no idea. In the opposite corner of the room, on a small dais, Karn found the source of the music. He watched, fascinated, as a beautiful wood elf woman struck small hammers against strings that were stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. The music she produced was otherworldly, but it seemed neither worshipful nor warlike. If anything, it made Karn want to dance. Preferably amid the trees and under the moonslight. He wondered what the strange instrument was called.
“You like the dulcimer?” said a tall wood elf beside him.
“Yes,” replied Karn. “I guess I do.”
“Good taste.” The man had mahogany skin and walnut hair.
“I’m looking for someone,” said Karn. “A wood elf named Leflin Greenroot.”
“Are you, now?” The elf frowned. “Maybe your taste isn’t as good as all that after all.”
“Please, can you tell me where I can find him?”
The elf shook his head.
“You don’t know where he is, then?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I couldn’t tell you where you can find him.”
The wood elf crossed to a table, taking a chair to join a game that was being set up. Karn followed.
“It’s important that I speak with him.”
The wood elf ignored him, as did the others at the table. They busied themselves arranging the game.
Karn looked down at the tabletop. Colored playing tokens were placed on a board that had squares arranged in a rough curve, like a sort of race course.
“What is this?” he said.
“Never played a game of Charioteers?” the mahogany-skinned wood elf replied.
“Never even seen it.”
“Then be quiet while we play,” said the elf. His companions snickered.
Karn studied the board. Games fascinated him. And he knew that they often gave him insights into the gamers. Charioteers appeared to be for four players. Each controlled four playing pieces of the same color. There was a clear starting line and a clear finish line.
“It’s a racing game,” said Karn. The elf nodded.
“What are those spaces for?” He pointed to the starlike markings that were painted at certain points around the track.
“Safe spots,” said another elf at the table. “You can’t be sent back if you’re on one of them. Two players can occupy a star at the same time.”
“Sent back?”
“Don’t encourage the foreign boy,” said the first elf.
“Let me guess,” said Karn. “You send an opponent back by landing on them. Unless they are on a star-marked space. The object is to get, what, all four of your own pieces to the finish line?”
“For a long game or tournament play,” said the elf. “But usually you are only required to get any two across to win.”
“Starting order makes a difference,” said Karn, tapping the board on the far left, where the player who began there would have a longer route to the end of the track.
“Aye,” said the elf. “The game is meant to simulate the chariot races of the famous Hippodromes of the old Gordion Empire. The charioteer teams who were backed by the wealthiest patrons got the choice starting positions. We roll dice to determine the starting order.”
“Are we going to talk or play?” said the second elf.
“I need to talk,” said Karn.
“I told you, boy,” said the elf. “Leflin Greenroot doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Let him decide that.”
“No.”
Karn studied the elf.
“You like games, don’t you?” He allowed the challenge to fill his voice. “I mean, you really like them?”
“What are you on about, boy?”
“Let me play. If I lose, I’ll go away and not bother you again. But if I win, you tell me where I can find Greenroot.”
“Interesting, but my friends here and I will just gang up on you and take you out immediately. Won’t be much of a contest, I’m afraid.”
“Then let’s find someone else to play the other positions,” said Karn. “Someone neutral.”
“This is a wood elf inn, boy. And you’re a foreign lad a long way from home. Where will you find someone willing to play against my interest?”
“I’ll play,” said a voice. Karn saw that a young wood elf female had entered the room. She seemed about his own age, though with elves it was hard to tell. Her skin was a lustrous golden oak, her hair the blond of yellow birch wood. “I promise not to aid either one of you unfairly. I’ll play for my own interests.”
The mahogany elf studied her a moment.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But that still leaves us short a fourth player.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be a problem.” All eyes turned to see who had spoken.
“Greetings, Karn,” said Tanthal, dropping nonchalantly into a vacant chair. Though Karn didn’t know his name, he recognized the newcomer immediately as one of the dark elves who had burst into Stolki’s Hall. “It seems I find you on the horns of a dilemma.”
“Absolutely not.” Karn had a hand on Whitestorm’s hilt. He’d pulled the sword half out of its wooden sheath but stopped when he saw the dark elf hadn’t risen. Tanthal sat in the chair, stretching and lacing his fingers behind his head as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His expression said that he thought Karn’s reaction was childish and embarrassing. Karn let the blade slide back down but kept his hand on the pommel.
“Another young foreigner in the Willows?” said the wood elf. “Two in one night, and both from Norrøngard.”
“Svartálfaheim,” corrected Tanthal. “I am Tanthal of the city of Deep Shadow, which lies beneath the Svartálfaheim Mountains.”
The mahogany elf snorted.
“So one’s from Norrøngard and one’s from under Norrøngard. You’re both a long way from your tiny corner of the world.”
“I came looking for a friend,” said Karn.
“And you,” said the wood elf, glancing at Tanthal. “Are you looking for a friend as well?”
“I don’t think he has friends,” said Karn.
“At least I have allies,” replied the dark elf menacingly.
Ignoring the awkward exchange, the wood elf spoke to the golden-skinned female. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.”
“Nesstra,” she said with a slight head bow.
“You’ve not been in Windy Willows before.”
“No, sir. I grew up in the town of Fairshadow, in the Blackfire Forest.”
“I know where Fairshadow is. I have associates there. What is your family?”
“The Sunbottoms,” she said. Karn thought she threw an uncertain glance at the dark elf before answering.
“Well,
Nesstra Sunbottom, welcome to the table. And welcome, Karn. And welcome, Tanthal. I’m going to enjoy beating you all.” He scooped up four dice, the white bone shining against his red-brown palm.
“You haven’t told us your name,” Karn said.
“That’s correct,” replied the mahogany elf. “I haven’t.” He let this pronouncement hang for a moment. “If you need a name to call me for this evening, you can call me Mr. Oak.”
—
Dice were handed out.
“Highest number gets the choicest spot,” Mr. Oak explained again, for the benefit of the newcomers. Unfortunately, the highest number turned out to be Tanthal’s, who rolled a six. This meant that the dark elf would play the gold team, starting the game in the position that afforded the shortest number of squares around the track. Mr. Oak came in next as black. Nesstra Sunbottom was green. Karn rolled the lowest and began play in the worst position, the unenviable red team. Hoping he’d gotten his bad luck out of the way early, he said a prayer to Kvir just in case. I hope Norrøngard isn’t too far away for you to hear me, he thought. But if the god of luck was out of earshot, Karn would make his own fortune.
Studying the board, he saw instantly how charging ahead wasn’t necessarily the best strategy. Racing around the course meant other players could pick you off as they came up on you from behind, landing on your playing piece and returning it to the start. However, the rules said that any even number of moves could be divided among your pieces. He rolled four evens and split his moves in half to bring two pieces into play, rather than sending one racing to the lead.
“Timid,” observed Tanthal.
“Smart,” replied Nesstra, with a smile for Karn. This earned her a scowl from the dark elf.
The turn passed to Nesstra and then Mr. Oak, both of whom exited the starting gate without event. Then it was the dark elf’s turn. Unfortunately, Tanthal’s luck continued. He also rolled a three. Rather than head straight forward, he went out of his way to land on Nesstra’s piece, sending her back to the beginning.
“You didn’t have to do that,” observed Karn. “It doesn’t really accomplish much this early in the game, does it?”
“It lets my opponents know I am not to be trifled with,” replied Tanthal.