by E. E. Knight
“Which wouldn’t be one-tenth the cost of trustworthy guards-men, perhaps not even one one-hundredth,” Djer added.
Sekyw tapped the dwarf’s high boots and gave a quick shake of his head. Auron felt his lips pull back from his teeth, and covered his mouth again with an effort.
“Who’s this? Who’s this?” Emde asked.
Sekyw harrumphed. “One of my tradesdwarves, sir. He found the drake on the road.”
“The bargain is with Djer,” Auron said. “And no other.”
“Djer deserves credit for finding you, young drake,” Sekyw said. “Having the courage to sit down and talk with you is to his credit. But only a Partner can make a contract with a non-dwar.”
“That’s so,” Emde said. “Though there seems precious little for me to do, with the bargain, and a good one, already agreed to.”
“Then make Djer a Partner,” Auron said. “For I’ll keep no other bargain.”
All three dwarves stared at him. Sekyw began to sputter like a broken teapot: “But . . . but . . . pttt . . .”
Emde chuckled. “Djer, this drake is loyal to his friends, I will give him that. Young skyking, this copper-whiskered, though apparently promising, youngster can’t be brought into the Partnership. There are rules, traditions, codicils, seniorities—”
“I thought you were simple dwarves of trade. If it is so difficult, I can find my own way east.”
“Just a moment,” Emde said, holding out his hands. “You’ve not even tasted the hospitality of the Chartered Company. At least have a meal before you go. It’s not every day one gets to talk to a young skyking.” The Partner pulled on another bell-rope by the door his secretary had left from.
“Why do you keep calling me skyking?” Auron asked, sniffing the air in the hope food was on its way.
“That’s the old Dwarvish word for ‘dragons,’ in happier times. Funny, but I heard it used just the other day. . . . Enjoy the view while the food is being prepared. Excuse me, and Sekyw, as you value your position, don’t let our visitor leave without further negotiations.”
The smell of food brought Auron away from the view of the great river valley: hills reduced to hummocks and trees foreshortened to blades of grass. He and Djer left the balustrade and returned to the office, where platters were being uncovered on an end table.
Emde came in from the main door. Auron got a peek at the tops of the assembled dwarves’ heads. They were bowing to two wizened figures, whitebearded and wrinkled, shuffling into the office supported by canes of carven crystal. Djer sucked in his breath and bowed, and Auron had to tear himself away from the food.
“Shut the blasted curtains, Emde,” one said, a little more red-faced than the other.
“We’re not petitioners you need to dazzle,” the other said.
Dwarves appeared as though by magic and closed off the view, then disappeared as suddenly as they arrived.
“Young skyking,” Emde said, ushering in the two, “it is my honor to introduce Vekay and Zedkay, of the original Charter, our senior Partners. I told them we would be happy to join them in their quarters, but they insisted on coming down for a meal and a talk.”
“Ach, most pleased,” the red-faced one introduced as Zedkay said, in an accent enough like Djer’s for Auron to like him better than the other dwarves he had met today. “Don’t stand on ceremony when you can stamp on it, I always say. Dig in, young skyking—there’s an entire roast for you at the end there.”
“Or if it wasn’t for you, it is now,” Vekay added.
Auron and Djer started in to their meal with day-old appetite; Emde and Sekyw ate a polite morsel or two. Sekyw ate with more enthusiasm after Vekay elbowed his brother and said, “That’s a hard-working dwarf’s appetite if I ever saw one,” pointing to Djer.
Djer smiled with grease running down his chin.
“There’s a question of a bargain young Djer made with this dra—skyking,” Sekyw said.
“The dragon is insisting that he’ll keep the bargain with our tradesdwarf alone, and the Partnership rules . . .”
The oldsters mumbled at each other. “Why, yes, he’s young,” Zedkay said, more loudly to the assembly, “but so were we at the Chartering. I hardly had hair below my ears, and Vekay had but a tuft on his chin. The elders treated us as good as any other of the Company, though.”
Vekay tucked his beard in his belt and buttoned his frazzled woolen vest. “Just the other day we were speaking to Emde about the Charter, and how it was modeled on the Ancient’s Riian Partnership. Ages past, long bankrupt, but in those days, the Riians had elves, men—yea, even dragons—working for them. Happier times.”
“Happier times,” Zedkay agreed, before his brother continued.
“They had several skykings, the stories go, young males who were making a nuisance of themselves otherwise to their families. We kept their stomachs full, and they flew as couriers, across the Inland Sea, to the east, to the lost kingdom of Wyang, even. Didn’t lose a single pouch in hundreds of years, or so they claimed. A very lucrative business, courier service.”
“Very lucrative,” Zedkay rasped. “So don’t be so quick to throw away the goodwill of a skyking over a niggling matter of procedure.”
“But the Charter,” Emde said.
“The Charter won’t be hurt,” Vekay said. “There are provisions to add Partners for contingencies in it.”
“That takes a Significant Majority in a Quorum Vote,” Emde said, “and we don’t have anything like a quorum—”
“Or a Simple Majority of the Founding Partners, as you’ll find in Paragraph Two of Article Nine, methinks,” Vekay said.
Emde reached into a pocket, retrieved an ivory scroll-tube, and uncapped it.
Sekyw pulled at his beard, wincing at the pain.
“I move that we make this hungry young dwarf a partner,” Vekay said, looking at Djer.
“Seconded,” Zedkay said as Sekyw fell into a barrel chair with a thump.
“All in favor?” Vekay said, as he and Zedkay lifted their supports high.
The ancient dwarves held aloft their crystal canes, the tips at the base sparkled through some inner incandescence.
“Motion carried by Simple Majority, for the record,” Vekay said. “Off the record, it was a unanimity. I’d like to welcome our new Partner, Djer, and invest him with all the responsibilities and privileges therein. ’Bout time this leaky mountain had some new blood.”
“By my beard, it’s legal,” Emde said, looking at the tightly spaced fine print on the scroll.
“Will you take the bargain, Auron?” Djer said, blinking as if he had stepped into bright sunlight.
“Of course, my friend,” Auron said, inspecting the banquet on the side table. He found a platter of sausages, conveniently linked, and began to eat. After they disappeared, he moved on to the roast.
“Is there anything you’ll require, young Partner?” Vekay asked.
“I’ll need an assistant, to help with sundry matters relating to the dragon,” Djer said. “I’d like Sekyw—he’s a good dwarf, and he could do with a taste of travel.”
“What sort of sundry matters? Feeding him?” Sekyw said in a quiet voice.
Djer watched Auron eat. “Yes, and other things. You’ll see what you’ll be dealing with within the hour of that roast disappearing.”
The three partners laughed.
“You’ll head up the Iron Road tomorrow,” Zedkay said. “If I remember my tallies for this year right, you’ll have to hurry; most of the tradegoods have made the trip to Wallander. Too bad your young skyking doesn’t have his wings yet.”
“We’ll leave at once. No sense wasting a night. We can sleep on whatever cargo’s making the run now.”
Auron held the roast in his forepaws, dribbling juice on the carpet. “No, after we eat. And stock up on sausages.”
Chapter 13
Wallander was just that: a land surrounded by a wall. The palisade enclosed gardens, pastures, the riverbank, and landing. A fe
w houses, with only half-walls of clay bricks keeping them from being called shacks, sat at the riverside. There was no dock proper. A long spit of mud had been built up with gravel to form a dike. Shallow-draft boats just pitched up on the dike; deeper ones lowered planks to the spit.
The wall had a single tower in the center and at each end: round wooden constructs of three rings, each one smaller than the first, ending in a mast as Auron had seen on ships. The familiar red-and-gold banner of the Diadem waved there, a long pennant as narrow as a dragon’s tail. Something about the foundation of the towers looked strange to Auron. There was an arch underneath, tall enough for a dwarf to walk upright. Auron thought it an unusual kind of gate, but one that would allow dwarves and their flocks to pass easily outside the walls. Over the walls Auron saw the dust-streaked backs of a herd of wraxapods.
There were wagons, though not as many as Auron imagined when the Caravan had been described to him on the weeklong rail-to-river trip. Djer and Sekyw pored over maps, tracts, and books, trying to prepare themselves for the bargaining that would take place in the fabled bazaars at the other side of the steppes.
Auron studied the maps, as well.
Wallander marked the gateway to the dangerous steppe country. Auron had seen some of it in mind-pictures from his father, and heard more from Djer and his new assistant as they discussed the Caravan’s journey. The steppe was a brown land of extremes: heat and cold, mud and snow, with dust in between. It was owned by the fabled Ironriders, endlessly warring clans who were born, lived, and died on their horses. They were nomads who traveled light, trading pelts and cattle even for the horseshoes that gave the clans their name in Parl. There were principalities here and there along the rivers cutting the plains and ruins that hinted at a greater culture before that of the Ironriders.
Djer’s new role as Partner, complete with red velvet vest closed by a golden chain—a last-minute gift from Zedkay, who claimed to have a closet full that he did not need—gave him instant deference on the rails and river, except by the captain of the Suram, an irascible river elf named Windcheek with hair growing in imitation of cattails.
“Full of wind, and cheek,” Djer said after he asked the captain if they would make Wallander in time for the Caravan for the second day in a row. The vessel, named in the nomad-tongue for the warm south wind, was a single-masted galley that could be rowed—even by Partners, as Djer learned—on the few occasions when the wind didn’t serve. She sailed crammed with last-minute supplies and travelers for the Caravan.
To pass the time and settle his nerves, Djer fashioned a “rooster claw” for the stump on Auron’s tail. He took a dwarvish fighting-gauntlet and modified it into a sock that fit over the stump. A tiny round shield covered one side, and Djer fixed a point taken from a pike to the end. Auron found it light and handy, entirely satisfactory except for one item.
“It shines too much,” he said.
“Easily fixed,” Djer said, and took it away for an hour. When he returned, it was as black as Auron’s claws.
Auron put it back on, and after a few practice tries, he thrust his extra claw a dwarf-finger’s depth into the side of the ship.
“Ai-yo, wingless,” the elf captain called. “Take care with my ship. I’ll not stand for you splintering my woodwork. Do it again, and I’ll spit you.”
“The Chartered Company’s ship,” Djer corrected.
“It’s my ship from when it leaves the falls until we touch sand at Wallander. Then it’s the Company’s ship again, dwarf.”
Sekyw flushed. “You shouldn’t let him speak to you like that. You’re a Partner, after all.”
Djer sprinkled his beard with river water. “He can say what he wants. I care not. As long as he gets us to the Caravan in time.”
So Djer breathed a sigh of relief when they rounded one of the wandering river’s many wide bends and came upon Wallander with the Caravan still assembling. The captain piloted the flat-bottomed galley past a chain of sand hummocks in the river and threw down her anchor at the landing. Small boats, bearing supplies and trade goods from a southern Caravan from the ivory-rich forests of Bant, rowed back and forth across the river like busy water-beetles. The crew jumped overboard, splashing as they set up the gangplank to the entry port at the ship’s waist.
Slave-laborers with sweat-darkened leather bands at their waists and wrists hurried on board, urged onward by the yells of a dwarvish taskmaster. Auron looked upon his first blighters. They resembled heavy-muscled men but with bigger heads and jaws, longer of finger and toe. They were covered with hair, growing in varicolored patches short and curly on chest and back and longer, almost manelike, at face, forearm, and knee.
“Prisoners taken in wars, or more likely the children of the defeated grown large,” Sekyw said. He made his way from the water, supporting his bulk with a gnarled walking stick. The three watched the unloading then turned and hiked up the trodden-over riverbank. The dwarf in charge of the landing bowed and answered a question from Djer.
“Now you’ll see something wonderful, Auron,” Djer said. “A traveling tower. A marvel of dwarvish brains and engineering.”
They crossed between temporary pens, piles of rugs, rolls of fabric, mirrors, and furnishings of all description. Stacks of arms, suits of armor, shields, and more mundane tools covered the landing, being counted and recorded by apprentice dwarves of the Diadem.
They walked in the shadow of the tower, and Djer pointed to its base. “It moves, friend dragon, on those. A revolving track.”
“A what?” Auron asked. He saw wheels, resting on and surrounded by a line of what looked to be small rectangular shields, linked like warriors standing in close ranks.
“Sort of a road that runs along the wheels in a loop. Driving wheels keep the road moving, and smaller wheels run along it bearing the weight. The tower is lighter than it looks—past the machinery, it is almost all wood within, save for some cables in the upper levels. I’ve never been inside one; I’ve just heard about them.”
“I took this trip when I was apprenticed,” Sekyw said. “I’ll give you a tour, if the tower-baron will let us climb in.”
“I must find Esef, the Partner-in-Charge, first. Say, my good dwarf!” Djer said, buttonholing one of the dwarves counting trade goods. The apprentice took pen from scroll box with a sigh, until he recognized the vest and chain. He grew as animated as if his boots were aflame. Auron looked at the scroll box: by turning a tiny crank, the user could roll the enclosed paper across the writing surface, protecting all but the paper under the pen from dirt or weather.
“This way, sirra, this way,” the apprentice said, leading them to a platform built into the wall. Little houses projected out of the wall; stairs led up to the door on the lofted house. A line of dwarves waited on the steps up, entering one by one after a pause of a moment or two, then descended via a sliding-pole on its own little platform by the door after conducting their business within. Djer, as befitted a Partner, jumped the line and walked right to the door, leaving Auron, the apprentice, and Sekyw waiting. Auron heard a sharp exchange within, followed by quieter words. A bald dwarf with a short pipe gripped in clenched teeth appeared at the window of the wallside house.
Djer joined him. “Auron, come up. Esef wants a better look at you.”
Auron had no desire to slink past the waiting dwarves on the stairway, so he swarmed up the pole. It was an easy climb that left him barely puffing despite his healing lung. He entered the room; it was larger than it looked. The office projected out from the other side of the wall, as well, though the heavy shutters were down to keep the wind from blowing papers scattered on a desk and pinned to the walls.
Esef had a marking pencil tucked behind one ear and an etching stylus behind the other. Either the pipe or one of the marking implements occupied his hand as he signed scroll box after scroll box.
“By my beard, I’m happy to see another Partner here, even if he’s new to the vest,” Esef said. “So you’ve brought a guardian for the e
xpense wagon? A young dragon, the letter from Emde said.”
Djer told the story, jumping over parts whenever Esef’s attention wandered to the scrolls presented by dwarves still coming in and out of the house.
“He looks alert enough,” Esef said, lifting one of Auron’s scarred lips to look at his teeth. Auron muzzled his temper, but couldn’t help his griff. They descended and rattled against his crest. If only Blackhard could have seen this, how the wolf would have grinned.
“Very well. I’ll terminate the contract with Hross’s bull-backs. Pay ’em for the time so far and see them off on the boat you came in. You may have to dicker a bit on traveling expenses, but be generous. We use Hross on the river and in the southlands, as well.”
Djer opened his mouth to add something, but Esef’s attention had already turned to the next dwarf in the door. Djer rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Auron. “Let’s go,” he said.
When they slid to the sand at the base of the pole, Djer patted Auron. “I thought the Partners did nothing but play ten-pins and down flagons with their cronies.”
“Not all sweetmeats and cakes, eh, Djer?” Sekyw said. “If you want my advice—”
“I’ll ask for it in writing. At the reading of my will, in the by,” Djer grumbled under his breath as he turned away.
The men were easy to find. They already stood guard around the expense wagon. Auron’s latest conveyance was a high, short wagon with oversize rear wheels and extra-thick axles. Four mighty men in leather vests, arms bulging from cut-off sleeves, lounged around, laughing and fighting with wooden practice-swords. A man that reminded Auron of a scarecrow in a field, all wide-brimmed black hat and thin limbs, was inspecting the contents of a breadbox.
“Five loaves a day, of this quality,” the scarecrow said to the white-aproned dwarf.
“One loaf feeds a dwarf for a day, and you want meat, nuts, and fruit besides?” the commissary said.
“No need for that now, no need,” Djer said in Parl, interrupting. “I beg your pardon, but are you Hross?” he asked the scarecrow.