Taking Flight loe-5

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

It looked as if it had been abandoned for years — and a good many years. If Kelder had been asked to guess, he’d have said ten or fifteen; he could believe as little as five, but less than that...

  Irith was only fifteen. More than three years ago and she wouldn’t even have been wearing a skirt yet — so to speak, since she was wearing breeches, in defiance of tradition. She wouldn’t have been welcome in a tavern unescorted.

  How could she have come to the Crystal Skull? And the way she spoke of it, she had been in here more than once.

  That was one thing.

  And the other...

  “How did that old man know who you were?” Kelder asked.

  “What do you mean?” Irith asked, uneasily.

  “I mean,” Kelder said, “he called you by name. He said he didn’t want to lose you again — he definitely said ‘again.’ When did he lose you before?”

  “He didn’t,” Irith said uncomfortably. “He’s crazy, or lying, or something.”

  “But how did he know your name?”

  “He probably heard one of you two say it,” she suggested, “and maybe he got me mixed up with some other Irith. I mean, it’s not an unusual name, you know.” She made a face that was almost a sneer. “It’s about the second most common name in the World, isn’t it, Kelder?”

  Kelder did not rise to the bait; he was used to jokes about his name, and he knew perfectly well that it was the most ordinary name in the World.

  And Irith was quite right, her own name was also very popular, probably the most commonly used feminine name — though nowhere near as widespread as “Kelder,” and maybe not up with some of the other masculine names. He’d heard plenty of jokes and stories that used Kelder and Irith as names for a boring peasant couple, and wasn’t bothered by them.

  “You’re sure you didn’t know him, when you were little?” Kelder asked.

  “Of course I’m sure!” Irith snapped. “Ick, him?”

  “I mean, he’s not your father, or your old master, or an uncle or something?”

  “Kelder, of course not! Don’t be stupid. My father’s dead, and I don’t have any uncles any more, and he’s not my old master, he’s just a creepy old man who’s got me mixed up with someone else.” She turned away, and muttered, “I mean, he’s got to be.”

  “When you came here before, were you alone? I mean, why were you in this tavern? You must have just been a little girl.”

  “No, Kelder, don’t be silly, it wasn’t that long ago!”

  “But...”

  “Hai,” she said, “just drop it, all right? Let it go.”

  Reluctantly, Kelder let it go. “All right, then,” he said, “let’s go find somewhere to eat, and to sleep. And in the morning we can see...”

  “In the morning,” Irith interrupted, “we can get out of here!”

  “Out of where?” Kelder asked, startled.

  “Out of Shan, of course! We can head back to somewhere civilized, not all these dreary ruins and old drunks and things!”

  Asha stopped crying and stared up at Irith.

  Kelder hesitated.

  “What about my brother?” Asha asked.

  “Oh, forget about your brother!” Irith snapped. “I want to get away from this awful place and that nasty old man!”

  “Wait a minute...” Kelder began.

  “You promised!” Asha shrieked.

  “I did not!”

  “You did!”

  “Hai!” Kelder shouted. “Quiet down, both of you!”

  The girls subsided, glaring angrily at each other. Kelder sighed. This was all getting very complicated; he hadn’t expected his promised wife to have a mysterious past and troublesome moods, nor had he expected championing the lost and forlorn to be as tricky as it seemed determined to be. “Listen,” he said, “we did promise her, Irith, but as soon as we get Abden’s head off that pike, we can get out of here.”

  “Well, how long is that going to take?”

  “Not long,” Kelder insisted. “I mean, I saw the caravan, back there, I think — it should be easy enough.”

  “How?” Irith demanded. “It’s up on a pike, out of reach, and they aren’t going to get it down for us.”

  “You can fly, can’t you?” Kelder replied. “Asha and I can make a distraction of some kind, so no one will be looking, and you can fly over there and snatch the head right off the pike, and no one will even see you, in the dark.”

  “You mean tonight?” Irith asked. “Now?”

  Kelder opened his mouth, and then closed it again. His stomach growled.

  “Maybe tonight,” he said, “after we eat.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Maybe we shouldn’t try it tonight,” Kelder said, chewing on the steak. The meat here required considerable gnawing — not, as Irith had pointed out, like the food at the Crystal Skull.

  “We should have found someplace better,” she had said.

  “There may not be any place better any more,” Kelder had replied, “and I’m hungry.”

  And now they were in Big Bredon’s Tavern, gnawing on meat that had probably come from some caravan’s superannuated draft animal. Little Asha was having trouble staying awake, her head constantly on the verge of falling forward into her fried potatoes.

  “Why not?” Irith asked.

  Kelder pointed his fork at Asha.

  “I’m all right!” Asha protested. “I’m just tired.”

  “We all are,” Kelder agreed. “So maybe we should just rest, and worry about it tomorrow night.”

  Asha frowned, blinking. “What if the caravan leaves again?”

  “Oh, it won’t do that,” Kelder said, not quite as confidently as he would have liked. “I’m sure they’ll be staying in Shan for several days yet. Right, Irith?”

  “I don’t know,” Irith said, jabbing her fork viciously at her potatoes.

  Kelder glared at her resentfully. “Well, anyway,” he said, “I think we’re all too tired tonight. We’d probably mess up somehow. Tomorrow night should be fine.”

  “I don’t want to stay in Shan all day,” Irith said, resentfully. “This place has really gone downhill since I was here, you know that? It’s a dump, now — ruins everywhere, half the arcades deserted...”

  “You’re just mad about the Crystal Skull,” Kelder said.

  “Yes, well, so what?” Irith snapped. “What difference does it make why I don’t like it here? I don’t like it here; I want to go.”

  “We’re not going anywhere until we at least try to get Abden’s head back,” Kelder told her.

  “Fine, then let’s just get it over with, shall we?” Irith dropped her fork and turned to Asha, then stopped and giggled.

  Kelder turned to see why Irith was laughing, and found Asha sound asleep, her cheek resting on the oily potato slices. He smiled, then carefully lifted her head from her plate and transferred it to a folded napkin on the table.

  “All right,” Irith said, before Kelder could say anything, “we get some sleep. But we don’t need to wait all day — why don’t we get up really, really early, maybe two hours before dawn, and... and do it then? And then we can still get out of town before anyone from the caravan wakes up, and they’ll probably be too busy doing business to come after us right away even if they notice it’s gone and figure out where we went.”

  Kelder considered that for a moment, wishing he weren’t quite so exhausted himself; his fatigue made thinking difficult.

  “All right,” he said at last. “That will give us about four hours’ sleep, I guess, which is better than nothing.”

  Irith smiled at him, her first real smile since that morning. “Oh, good!” The smile vanished. “It’s going to be really yucky, you know, pulling that head off that pike.”

  Kelder grimaced. “I guess so,” he said. “You have to do it, though; you’re the only one who can fly.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “Let’s go get some sleep.”

  They went and got some sleep. They had to carry Asha to
the room Irith had rented, Kelder taking her under the arms, Irith taking her feet.

  It was only at the very last moment, the candle already extinguished, that Kelder realized they were not going to wake up until midday without outside help. He staggered back downstairs and promised the night watchman six bits in copper if he got them up on schedule.

  The watchman agreed.

  Kelder did not even remember returning to his bed; the next thing he knew was that someone was shaking him, none too gently, and someone with beery breath and a strange accent was telling him, in Trader’s Tongue, to wake up.

  He was too tired to think in Trader’s Tongue at first, and in Shularan he advised whoever it was to go immediately to Hell, and to speak Shularan on the way.

  The shaker said, in Ethsharitic this time, that he spoke no Quorulian. This completely inappropriate response brought Kelder awake, as he tried to figure it out.

  He sat up, blinking, and recognized the night watchman.

  “It’s not Quorulian,” Kelder said. “It’s Shularan.”

  “I don’t speak that, either,” the watchman said in Trader’s Tongue, shrugging.

  “Right,” Kelder said. “Thank you for waking me.”

  “Eight bits,” the watchman said, holding out a palm.

  “Six,” Kelder said, “when my friends are awake and we’ve checked the time.”

  The Shanese shrugged again. “Six,” he agreed. “I wait.”

  Kelder glared at him for a moment, then reached over and shook Irith awake.

  Five minutes later the three of them were making their way, rather blearily, through the streets of Shan. The watchman, richer by six bits of Irith’s money, was back in his regular post at the inn.

  “So I just fly up and take the head off the pike, and then we go, right?” Irith asked, stumbling over an empty bottle and narrowly avoiding whacking her head against a stone pillar.

  Kelder nodded. “That’s right,” he said.

  “And what are you two going to be doing?”

  “Standing watch, I guess,” Kelder replied. Then he corrected himself, “No, they’ve probably got guards. We’ll be distracting the guards.”

  “Oh,” Irith said. “All right.”

  “There!” Asha said, pointing. “There it is!”

  “Shh!” Kelder and Irith both hushed her.

  She looked up at them, startled, but said no more.

  “Do you see any guards?” Kelder asked.

  Irith shook her head. “They must be there, though.” She sighed. “Tell me again why I’m doing this.”

  “Because,” Kelder told her, “you promised Asha.”

  Irith looked unconvinced.

  “Because I asked you to,” Kelder suggested.

  Irith sighed again, nodded, and spread wings that had not been there an instant before. She flapped them once.

  Kelder started to shush her, then caught himself.

  “Just testing,” she said. “They’re a little stiff; I haven’t flown much these last few days.”

  He nodded. “Look,” he said, “we’ll meet you at the city gate, all right?”

  “Fine.” Her wings stretched gracefully upward, flapped, and she rose toward the night sky.

  Below her, the youth and the child watched for a moment. Then Kelder shook himself out of his momentary daze and said, “Come on.” Asha followed obediently as he crept toward the caravan, moving as silently as he could and trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible.

  The wagons were in a line along one side of an arcade that was significantly higher and wider than most, and open on both sides. Torches were mounted on each vehicle, but most had burned out, and those that remained were little more than stubs. What little light they cast mingled with the orange glow of the greater moon, and with light spilling over from the central square, but even so, the arcade was shadowy and dim, the caravan’s bright colors reduced to scarcely more than flame-yellow and shadow-gray.

  Most of the wagons were closed, their shutters latched and doors barred, awnings and banners furled and stowed. Steps and benches were folded away, brakes set, wheels blocked. The draft animals and outriders’ mounts had all been unhitched and taken elsewhere for stabling, the yokes and traces and other gear all neatly tucked out of sight. Each one had a pike held to one corner by iron loops, and atop each pike was a bandit’s head.

  At first glance, Kelder saw nothing moving but the flickering shadows. Then something yawned loudly.

  Kelder felt Asha tugging at the back of his tunic, but he ignored it as he looked for the source of the sound.

  He found it; a big, burly man in a dark tunic and kilt was leaning against a pillar, whittling. A sword hung from his belt, and a long spear stood within easy reach, propped against a stone upright. There could be no doubt whatsoever that he was standing guard.

  The knife he was carving with glinted in the torchlight for a moment, and a curl of wood-shaving spiraled to the pavement. He was awake, but not exactly intent on his job.

  The mere fact of his presence, and wakefulness, was enough to make the whole job more worrisome, though. “Damn,” Kelder muttered to himself.

  “Kelder!” Asha whispered urgently.

  He turned, finger to lips, and hissed, “What is it?”

  “Where’s Abden?”

  Kelder looked at her blankly for a moment.

  “I mean, where’s Abden’s head?”

  Annoyed, Kelder turned to point. “The head’s right...”

  He stopped.

  Slowly, he turned back to Asha.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What does... what did your brother look like?”

  “I don’t know,” Asha said.

  “That one,” Kelder said, pointing to the nearest pike, “is that him?”

  “No,” Asha said, “that’s Kelder — I mean, the other Kelder, Kelder the Lesser, they called him.”

  “Well, I knew it wasn’t me,” Kelder snarled sarcastically. “What about the others? Which one is he?”

  Asha took a minute to peer up at those heads that were visible from where they stood. “I don’t see Abden,” she said at last.

  The head was not right there, Kelder realized.

  “Damn!” he said again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Now, how many heads are there?” Kelder asked himself, as he scanned the skies for Irith. “Nobody’s about to take a severed head inside his wagon at night, not if he’s sleeping there — that would be too creepy, just asking to be haunted.” He glanced down at Asha, hoping for some useful suggestion, but all he saw was that she was on the verge of tears. He quickly turned his gaze upward again.

  “No one would take one inside,” he said, still addressing himself, “so they’re all out here on the wagons, and it’s just a matter of finding the right one, right?”

  Asha made a muffled noise of agreement.

  Kelder frowned. It was just a matter of finding the right one, but Asha was the only one who could do that, since she was the only one who knew her brother’s face.

  Irith must have realized this by now — so where was she? Why hadn’t she come back for further instructions? All he could see was a small bird, silhouetted against the lesser moon as it climbed the eastern sky.

  He shrugged, and looked down at Asha. “We’ll have to sneak up as close as we can, and see if we can find the right... uh... the right pike. Then we’ll tell Irith which one it is...”

  There was a sudden flapping of wings, and Irith was descending, a few feet away.

  “Kelder,” she said angrily, “I don’t know which head!”

  “We just thought of that,” Kelder agreed.

  “So what do we do?”

  “Can you carry Asha when you fly? Then she could point it out.”

  Irith looked the girl over, considering, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not a chance.”

  Kelder had expected that. “All right, then,” he said. “We sneak Asha up as close as we can on foot, and let
her look until she finds the right one.”

  “Maybe Irith could get all of them?” Asha suggested. “Then we could go back and burn all the bodies...”

  She realized that both Kelder and Irith were glaring at her, and her voice faded away.

  “No,” Irith said. “Just one.”

  “All right,” Asha said. “I’ll go look. But I can’t go alone.”

  “Of course not,” Kelder agreed.

  Irith glanced over at the wagons, the patchwork of light and shadow, the big man scraping away bits of wood with his knife.

  “You two go ahead,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”

  Kelder started to agree, then paused. Irith was the one who had to know just where the head was, after all. But it wasn’t worth the argument. “All right,” he said. “Come on, Asha.”

  Together, the two crept closer.

  There were a dozen wagons; the guard stood beside the seventh in line, by Kelder’s quick count, and they had approached near the ninth. “This way,” he hissed, beckoning Asha toward the front of the column.

  After all, there were more wagons in that direction, even if it was farther to go.

  The head on the eighth wagon was facing the opposite direction, but Asha shook her own head no; the hair was wrong.

  The next faced them, but again, Asha indicated that it was not the one they wanted. They were both tiptoeing now; if the guard happened to look up from his whittling, and if he weren’t blinded by the tangle of shadows and torchlight, he would be looking right at them.

  The head on the sixth wagon was facing away, and Asha was not completely sure, but didn’t think it looked like Abden.

  Kelder was beginning to think they should have turned the other way and checked the tail end first when Asha made a strangled noise.

  “That’s it,” she said, pointing. “That’s Abden.”

  The fifth wagon was green trimmed with gold, and the Ethsharitic runes on the side said something about someone named Doran of someplace — Ship-something, safe place for ships, something like that; Kelder did not bother to puzzle the whole thing out. It was obviously the name of some Ethsharitic merchant. The pike at the front corner displayed the head of a young man, and Kelder thought there might be some resemblance to Asha, but he wasn’t sure he wasn’t just imagining it.