by Paul Collins
‘Zimak, maybe you’d better tell us what’s been going on here.’
Chapter 4
The Stranger
The clatter of shod hooves echoed back from the walls on either side of the street as the armoured carriage raced through the port city of D’loom. Inside, Daretor sat hunched beside the luggage while Jelindel and Zimak sat opposite. It irked Daretor that Jelindel had taken the seat next to Zimak and was so companionable with him. He knew he was being foolish, but he could not rid himself of an old unease. Ever since he and Zimak had been forced to exchange bodies, it had always bothered him that Jelindel might have only fallen in love with him inside Zimak’s body. Despite great effort, he could not rid himself of the possibility that she had given her heart to the wrong man.
Jelindel was not aware of it. She looked around the inside of the carriage, then commented, ‘It’s spell-warded?’
‘Aye,’ said Zimak. ‘By some street-corner charm-vendor whose bill arrived this morning.’
‘Such precautions seem unwarranted,’ said Daretor.
Zimak inscribed the sign of White Quell across his chest. ‘That’s a laugh, coming from a man who’s supposed to have drowned two days ago.’
‘He’s right, Daretor,’ said Jelindel.
Daretor scowled, as much at himself as Zimak. Fear he could cast aside, jealousy was much harder to conquer.
‘What else has happened?’ Jelindel asked Zimak.
‘What hasn’t?’ Zimak widened his eyes, which were reddened from lack of sleep. ‘First, somebody tried to kill me – five days ago, in a back alley. If it hadn’t been for my kick-fist skills, why, I might not be sitting with you right now.’
‘So your attacker was a blind, geriatric cripple,’ said Daretor at once.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a wonder you can move in that bloated body.’
Zimak shook his head. ‘I still know some fancy moves.’
‘Demonstrate one. A spinning back kick, perhaps.’
‘Stupid, fancy show kick, it’s of no use in real fighting,’ Zimak said.
‘Perhaps a standing side kick?’
Zimak squared his shoulders. ‘I prefer to face my enemies.’
‘What about a rather feeble punch from a seated position?’
‘Sarcasm will achieve nothing,’ said Zimak, who shot him a scowl. ‘Your body runs to fat too easily, Daretor.’
‘It never did when I was master of it.’
‘Luckily for me I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.’
‘They must be very small tricks, what with such fat arms.’
‘Why you –’ began Zimak, then he reined himself back and held up a hand in an imperious gesture. ‘Anyway, that same night somebody tried to break into the shop. Our guard spells went off and must have scared them away. But I found a smooth hole sliced in the door where the lock had been.’
‘Sliced?’ asked Jelindel.
‘Sliced. Very odd it was, sliced clean through and the cut smooth as glass – the sort of damage done by a thundercast.’
‘The weapon that made the hole must be similar to the one Korok tried frying us with in Altimak, four years ago,’ Daretor said. He thought a moment. ‘But Korok is dead. Could it be that his people have come here in search of revenge?’
‘I don’t think his people had anything to do with it,’ Jelindel said quietly. Your fate is to save magic, or destroy it. The future lies on a knife’s edge … She shook away the words.
Zimak went on. He explained that things had changed in D’loom, starting shortly after Jelindel and Daretor had left for the north on the first of their commissions. Pirate attacks off the coast had increased, and the King had been unable to negotiate an accord whereby pirates and merchants could coexist, and even make profits. Three months earlier the pirate federation had reportedly turned down a handsome offer. To many it appeared that they did not now want an accord. Traditionally, D’loom had provided the pirates with a secure harbour, immunity from prosecution, and access to markets and trade routes inland. The privateers’ final, transparent attempt to scuttle the negotiations had touched off an economic recession that had hit D’loom hard. Most of its prosperity came from the sea, either directly as trade and bounty, or because of the merchants who flocked to D’loom to set up their trade houses there. The sea trade itself had always been attracted by D’loom’s extensive docks and wharves, its relaxed waterside guilds, and its famously low tariffs. Now unemployment was increasing almost as fast as discontent.
The carriage slowed, and they found themselves at the main produce market. Instead of fruit, vegetables and meat for sale, there were men.
Jelindel and Daretor peered from the carriage as long lines of men edged slowly past accountors seated at small wooden tables, parchment and ink spread before them. The marks and signatures of the recruits were then passed onto managers waiting behind the tables. Recruiting foremen stood on crates and hectored the crowd, offering choice labour conditions and pay. One bald-headed giant of a man, stationed not far from the carriageway, bellowed at the top of his lungs, ‘Argentia! Rich mines and rich wages for those not afraid of a little work. Four days on, four days off, and the best entertainment this side of Baltoria!’
The carriage rumbled on, and soon they arrived at the house they had bought with the gold given them by a grateful client in another paraworld.
While the bowmen atop the carriage watched the streets with hawk eyes, Jelindel and the others unloaded their scanty luggage and carried it inside. Zimak paid off the driver and the bowmen, entered the house, then carefully locked, bolted and chained the door. Jelindel and Daretor watched him at work, now looking worried. Zimak’s precautions made his fears seem more real. Twenty minutes later they were seated around a rough wooden table laden with chunks of cold chicken and lamb, small bowls of relishes, platters of cheese and fresh bread, and pitchers of ale.
Zimak picked up his story as if there had been no interruption. ‘At about that time the recession began to hit hardest. When the labour markets first opened, I noticed something else,’ he said. ‘The demand for magic was on the decline. I thought maybe it was just us, that maybe our customers were getting a better deal elsewhere, but it turns out that it’s the same all over. All the mages and charmvendors are complaining. Now it’s like people have started to distrust magic itself.’
Jelindel, thinking back to adventures she and Daretor had experienced in far Ishluk, nodded. ‘I’ve seen places where such distrust has been carried to extremes,’ she remarked, then looked to Daretor. ‘This is further proof that I might be right, even though I wish I were not. Someone, or something, is weakening people’s belief in magic. Take magic away and what is left?’
‘More opportunities for warriors to earn a living?’
‘Remove magic, and only cold science is left. Some people might like that.’
Zimak blinked. ‘Gah, what a mess. D’loom’s been invaded by merchantmen, the wandering merchants. Rumour has it they all know one another. If you ask me, they’re warriors, campaign veterans disguised as harmless peons.’
‘And they do what exactly?’ Jelindel prompted.
Zimak shrugged. ‘They’re competing with us. But it’s not magic, or not any kind of magic I know.’
‘So what do these merchantmen peddle?’ Daretor asked.
Zimak thought for a moment. ‘Everything from ailment creams to double-edged razors, the like of which are not of Q’zar. Look here, for example.’ He held out a scarred hand. ‘I sent some bully boys packing last week when they attacked a stallholder.’
Daretor’s brow rose.
Zimak glared at him. ‘If I’d been in my own body I’d have come away unscathed.’
‘Go on, I’ve not had a proper laugh for some time,’ prompted Jelindel.
‘Hie, very well, it was a sideline, protection money. I had to do something while you two were away, having all the fun. Anyway, normally a week’s earnings wouldn’t have bought a charm to h
eal the wound, but a market vendor sold me this smooth cream. Within the day the swelling was gone. Two days later the wound was healed over.’
Jelindel examined the tube that held the cream. ‘I’ve never seen the like,’ she muttered. She turned Zimak’s hand over as though suspecting he was tricking them. ‘And it doesn’t hurt?’
‘Swelling went down almost immediately. The stallholder was doing a roaring trade. He had a remedy for everything from head pain to colds, to wounds, to bottled potions to take away despair. Within the week the market hacks had packed up and left.’
‘What says Onala, the High Priestess of the Temple of Verity?’
Zimak scoffed. ‘Your “mate” scarpered with her tail between her legs. The Temple shut down a month ago.’
Jelindel stared, open-mouthed.
‘I’ve heard it said that the High Priestess was threatened by these merchantmen. She called their bluff, so the temple was razed one night. Only their ward spells saved their lives. The constables were next to useless. Most resigned their posts at the first hint of trouble.’
‘To be expected,’ Jelindel said. ‘These are all the hallmarks of cold science.’
‘And nobody knows who these merchantmen are?’ Daretor asked.
‘Or where they come from,’ Zimak added. ‘They just appeared over a couple of weeks, throwing their money around like they had their own secret mint. They’ve also bribed their way into the King’s court and purchased positions of power.’
‘All this in such a short time,’ Jelindel pondered. ‘What is the word on the streets?’
Zimak gestured helplessly. ‘As I said, those charmvendors and cauldron witches left complain a lot. Some say the gods have turned their backs on the old magic.’
Jelindel laughed. ‘The old gods gave up their interest in humans millennia ago.’
That night Jelindel and Daretor lay in bed watching rain spatter against the window. She snuggled closer to him. ‘This isn’t exactly what we had in mind, is it?’ she said.
Daretor snorted softly, almost asleep. ‘A holiday is what I wanted.’
‘You? A holiday?’
‘People change.’
‘Next you’ll tell me Zimak wants to rush off into deadly danger.’
‘Some people don’t change.’
They talked some more but the pauses between answer and question grew longer, and soon the room was filled with soft regular breathing as they fell asleep.
Around three in the morning something awakened Jelindel. She sat up straight, peering around with darkened eyes, eerily alert. Seeing and hearing nothing she put on a nightrobe, slipped on buskins, and went out to the landing. She could hear faint snoring coming from Zimak’s room down the end of the hall. Nothing was amiss there, at least. She crossed to the balcony railing of the mezzanine floor, and gazed down to the ground level, which was cloaked in shadows.
Jelindel stood a moment longer, then shrugged. Obviously Zimak’s stories and hints had affected her nerves. She started back to her room, and stopped. It was not a sound that made her freeze, it was a smell.
Smoke.
She rushed in and woke Daretor, told him to get Zimak up, then grabbed her sword and dashed down the stairs. She flung open the kitchen door and lurched backwards as a wall of flame surged out into the corridor.
The heat was intense. She covered her face with her arm and felt the hairs on her skin shrivel at the very thought of being singed. Daretor came rushing up behind her but he too backed away.
That was when Jelindel noticed something very odd. The flames did not consume what they touched. She caught glimpses of the inside of the kitchen as the fire ebbed and surged, but as far as she could tell, nothing had been harmed. Still, the inferno raged. Now it was in the corridor, licking the ceiling, now skimming across the walls, reaching for the rug.
Smoke filled the air, making them cough violently. Zimak dashed up with a pail of water and threw it on the nearest flames. But instead of being doused, or at least dampened, they surged forward even more hotly than before.
‘It’s no ordinary fire,’ Jelindel yelled above the roaring noise. ‘It’s mage work.’
‘Can you counter it?’ Daretor shouted back. His face was already blackened with soot, in spite of the fact that the fire burnt nothing. Jelindel wondered, in one of those idle moments that always come in the midst of danger and panic, whether she too looked as ridiculous.
‘I’ll try.’
Blue light flickered about her lips then leapt the intervening space to assault the fire. At first, the flames reared up and retreated, as if they were a living thing, suddenly afraid. Then they swept back, sending out a tongue of flame that lashed at Jelindel and would have burnt her badly had Daretor not jerked her away in time.
‘In the shop,’ she yelled. ‘There’s a tub of powdered bane’s wood. Fetch it.’
Daretor hurried off and returned moments later with a small barrel of greenish powder. Jelindel started throwing handfuls of the stuff at the flames, muttering charms of suppression as she did so. Slowly, the flames retreated, leaving behind an awful stench. It took more than an hour to finally quench the fire and by that time they were almost out of the bane’s wood and all three were blackened.
Exhausted, they dropped into chairs – untouched by the flames – breathing heavily and eyeing each other uneasily.
‘A curious and potent spell,’ Jelindel remarked at last, almost to herself. ‘One that sought out flesh and left inanimate things untouched.’
‘Hie, it seems we’re not very popular,’ Zimak said, brushing his blackened tunic.
‘The master of understatement,’ Daretor grunted.
Jelindel set powerful spells of warding and protection about the house. She was in the middle of a bath when Daretor came in. ‘We have a visitor,’ he announced.
She stood up, dripping water. ‘At this time of the night? Dawn is still two hours away.’ She stepped from the tub and headed for the door.
‘Jelli?’
She stopped and looked back at Daretor.
‘What?’
‘You might want to put some clothes on.’
She looked down at herself. ‘Oh.’
A few minutes later she entered the room where they always met their clients. A hooded man sat at the table, his hands clenched together so tightly that his fingers were white-knuckled. Daretor stood nearby, a hand on the pommel of his sword, poised for action. The man did not seem perturbed by this, but since his face could not be seen it was hard to tell. His head moved slightly as Jelindel entered. She sat down opposite.
‘I’m Jelindel dek Mediesar,’ she said and after a pause, added, ‘I would prefer to see the face of the person to whom I’m speaking.’
The other slowly pushed back his hood, revealing a man in his late thirties or early forties, with prematurely grey hair, rugged good looks that seemed rather haggard right now, and a wolfish grin. Jelindel found herself liking him, though of course that very likely had been the man’s intention. Daretor noted Jelindel’s response, and his face darkened.
‘I am called Taggar. I have come from Argentia.’
Zimak came in with drinks: spiced coffee and boiled milk. A disquiet had settled on the room and everyone seemed buoyed by the pungent smell of coffee.
‘You have seen troubles this night,’ said Taggar, sipping his drink.
Daretor stiffened. ‘What do you know of that?’
Taggar shrugged. ‘I can smell mage-fire. And your house is heavily protected with wards and charms of some complexity.’
‘Which you walked right through,’ Jelindel pointed out, ‘as if they weren’t there.’
‘Do you know who attacked you?’
‘You did,’ said Zimak bluntly. ‘Don’t take us for fools.’
‘It was not I who sought to harm you.’
‘You have travelled far,’ said Jelindel, shifting the conversation slightly. ‘Your cloak is journey-stained, your boots have seen heavy use, and the lines around
your eyes suggest long periods of squinting … Perhaps from looking for those who might be following you …’
Taggar laughed. ‘You are perceptive, my lady.’
‘Why don’t you tell us your story?’
Taggar finished his coffee in a gulp and held out the empty cup to Zimak, smiling. ‘Might I trouble you for some more of this most excellent brew?’
Zimak complied without grace. While he did so Taggar began his tale. As he talked Jelindel watched his face and listened closely to his words, noting places where things were left out, and where phrases were worded cautiously. He’s taking great care not to lie, thought Jelindel.
Taggar said he was from the mining town of Argentia which nestled in the western foothills of the Algon Mountains. Argentia had always been a frontier type of town: rough folk, rough manners, rough justice. In recent years however, a certain order had come to the place. Those same rough folk had had families, raised children, and their manners mellowed somewhat. More recently the town had been taken over by a large company of men and the mining operations expanded tenfold. A perplexing urgency possessed the newcomers and they worked the miners hard. Over time the owners craftily indentured all those in the town so that now they were virtual slaves and could never hope to pay off the debts they had apparently incurred. Taggar himself was indentured but had managed to escape.
‘There is now a bounty on my head,’ he said and Zimak perked up at this, eyeing the man with new interest.
Taggar went on to say that the current mining operations were also much deadlier than the old: some of the new metals glowed in the dark and killed those who stayed near them too long. Daretor said they’d heard recruiters in the marketplace calling for workers for Argentia and offering substantial wages and bonuses. Zimak said they had been recruiting like that for weeks and by now hundreds were heading that way for work.
Taggar sighed. ‘Then they go into slavery and death.’