Saffer nodded and drew it from her sleeve, being very careful to maintain a distance of more than three paces between them. Unless Coniam was an utter fool, he'd have the rest of the pack in one of his pockets. "Rikiki's here," she said. "What've you got to offer in trade?"
"How does your life sound, child?"
"Melodious as a lark."
"Saffer!" Dumps cried. "Don't egg him on!"
The wizard lifted a hand in Dumps's general direction and the cardsharp immediately fell quiet. "What do you want for it?" Coniam asked.
"Let's see…. The use of the cards for one night? But of course that wouldn't do, would it? Since you've invested your own luck in the pack, it'll only serve you, won't it?"
"How much in straight coinage will you take for it?"
"Well, it depends. You did infuse it with more than your own luck, so that should make it worth— But then there's my keeping quiet about it as well. I don't think Lord Shin or any of the others would be all that happy to find out that you've, shall we say, 'borrowed' their luck."
"You are trying my patience, child. You won't say a word about it to Lord Shin or anyone else, or I'll simply have to tell them that it was the pair of you up to your usual tricks. Who do you think the judges would believe if it came to court? A respected wizard, or a pair of guttersnipes from Rat's Alley?"
"Well, that depends," Saffer said, "on whether or not one of those guttersnipes has a brother in the Guard."
"You wouldn't dare—"
"But I already have." Grinning, Saffer tore the playing card in two.
"My luck!" Coniam roared and he charged her, but two gray-clad shapes stepped quickly from the shadows to intercept him. After a very brief scuffle, the two guards had the wizard under control.
"That's one I owe you," Saffer's brother said to her. He was the taller of the pair, not as broad-shouldered as his partner, and his hair was the same chestnut brown as his sister's.
Saffer shook her head. "This is payment for pulling me out of Dumps's last scrape."
Demar shrugged. "Fair enough. This might mean a promotion for us."
"Wouldn't that be grand."
'Try to stay out of trouble now, won't you? Promise me?"
"Singer's honor," Saffer said, crossing her heart.
Her brother and his partner exchanged weary glances. "Go on," Demar said to her, "the both of you. And be quick about it—before we change our minds and run you in as well."
"But, but..." Dumps was spluttering.
"What's wrong?" Saffer asked him.
"The five players. When you tore the card in two..."
"They're fine," Demar said. "Saffer tore up a fake. The real card's in a very safe place."
Coniam glared at Saffer, but she just grinned back. Her brother took the wizard by the arm and led him off.
"One day..." the wizard called back to Saffer.
"Oh, I don't think so," Demar said. He tightened his grip on Coniam's arm. "I'm afraid it's Crab Isle for you, Master Wizard, and I doubt you'll be coming back."
•
The morning was warm, the sky blue, and the ducks had returned. Saffer was back on her stone between the Levar's Highway and the Saltmarsh, playing a new song to them. She didn't break off when she heard a footstep on the road, just waited for Dumps to sit down.
"I thought I'd find you here," he said. "What're you doing?"
'I'm writing a new song—free of charge—that will make us both famous."'
"The one you were just playing? That's the tune you're using?"
Saffer nodded.
"Sounded like duck farts to me."
"Actually, I was thinking of calling it 'The Duck's Fart Shuffle'."
"Odd's End, Saffer! Sometimes you really make me wonder."
Saffer gave her purse a whack and it replied with a jingle that sounded most tuneful to her ears. "I'm just eccentric," she said, "that's all. Sink you, if you—"
"—can't take a joke."
Saffer laughed. Giving Dumps a poke with her toe, she began to play a jig on her cittern.
"Dry Well" by Nathan A Bucklin, with lyrics by Alison Bucklin
The caravan road to Tichen
Has ended at Dondar's dry well,
But throwing the dice yet again
May lead us alive out of hell.
The tree I called home was solid against my back. The cittern sang like stringed lightning beneath my fingers. A dozen idle listeners clutched at their hats, or pulled their capes around their upper bodies. They didn't see my purposelessness, my weariness with balladeering. They saw only a slender, dark-haired minstrel boy; they felt only my music, and the wind.
The meadows of Dondar are dry;
The wind whistles doom to our sleep,
And thirst whispers, "Here shall you lie,"
But earth whispers hope from the deep.
And I, in turn, saw something unusual in the distance. Many of the nobles of Liavek walk through the park. The Eminent Pitullio walks in the park, with no guards, and little children run after him and he gives them candy. Count Dashif walks in the park, all by himself, and people stay well away from him.
I rarely saw His Scarlet Eminence, but when I did, he was accompanied by two guards, and he moved fast and silent. At any rate, like the Levar and most nobles, His Eminence never came anywhere near me when I played.
First toss gave us meadows of sand,
And fortune is turned into fear;
But Navar holds luck in his hand,
And hope whispers, "Water is near."
Silent and slow gather 'round,
For thirst is a catch in the breath,
And hope is a hole in the ground,
And fear whispers, "Failure is death."
He was approaching. His guards, so alike they might be twins, kept measured pace with him. Around me, heads were turning; I no longer had the full attention of my audience. Strange, that those same people who would wait months for an audience with His Scarlet Eminence would part like a river under a fording-spell when he appeared in their midst. But the line between awe and fear is a thin one indeed. As for me, I had the blackwood tree against my back, my cittern around my neck and under my fingers. my songs in my heart. I needed to fear nobody, and nothing, except my own uselessness.
The sun wheels its watch in the sky,
And waits for its carrion feed.
In chancing, perchance we may die,
But fearing to chance—die indeed.
And we are the wheel Navar spins,
And death is the risk we must take;
But whether he loses or wins,
Still luck whispers. "Life is the stake."
Strange, too, to be singing "The Dry Well of Dondar" when the Lcvar's Park was so richly blooming. But I play the songs that bring the most coppers. This autumn, especially, I had to think of money for shelter. Last autumn. I had spent perhaps one night a week at the inn called Mama Neldasa's, sleeping the rest of the time in a perch in this very tree and letting the coppers amass in my satchel. This autumn was only a little cooler and rainier, but two nights a week guarding against chill and damp meant that my belly growled its hunger; meant that I wore last year's tight shoes, or walked barefoot in the park and let the mud and grass give me cold after cold; meant that my cittern went without the new strings it so frequently needed, costing me a few discriminating listeners and a major part of my pride.
A pity it was that I could not teach myself to sleep outdoors on damp nights. A greater pity that the gods who controlled the weather did not pay heed to the needs of the park vagabonds. A pity that I had no higher purpose in life than being a wandering balladeer. A pity that His Scarlet Eminence was approaching me, and that my listeners were scattering without paying the last few coppers "The Dry Well of Dondar" usually brought me. But there was nothing to do but finish the song.
The water is lost in the past,
And time is the master of all,
But if Navar's magic should last,
; Then time—for a moment—may fall.
So luck hazards time for a throw;
A new game, with Navar the dice,
While water waits silent below,
And time whispers, "You are the price."
For death waits on time's other hand,
And luck wins and loses the day,
For Navar lies still on the sand,
And time flows like water away.
The desert will blossom again
With water, the life Navar gave;
And we take the road to Tichen,
And flowers will cover his grave.
There was nobody left but His Scarlet Eminence, Iranda the tightrope dancer, and me; the two guards had stepped back half a dozen paces. Iranda is seven or eight years older than I and fair-haired; she is one of my few regular listeners. She does two shows a day about a hundred paces from my tree, and then frequently coils up her rope and comes to listen to me and sing harmonies. I have never found it fair that the folk of Liavek tip her handsomely for her art, and me stingily, and more than once I have let her buy me dinner. Right now she was standing uncertainly a ways off to my right, looking as if she didn't know whether to protect me or not.
"You have a fine touch, boy," said His Scarlet Eminence. "And a fine voice."
More than anything else, I wanted to rest that fine voice for at least ten minutes. I always put my heart into that song; it meant a lot to me. Still, I answered. "Look what you've done! You've frightened away my entire audience. Whom shall I play for until some of them return?"
"Have you ever dreamed of coming to the palace to play for the Levar?" said His Scarlet Eminence in the same tone of voice, hearty but somehow mechanical.
Iranda's jaw dropped. Unconsciously (it must have been), she took a step toward me. I knew what she was thinking: Invite me too, Your Eminence, invite me too!
"No," I said firmly. Iranda's expression turned from amazement to shock. "I do not play music for the love of nobility, and I have no desire to see the inside of the palace." He was watching me through suddenly narrowed eyes. "Actually, I have no musical ambitions at all. Once I dreamed of being a wizard."
Iranda sealed her lips; her right hand was clenching and unclenching, fist to no-fist. I could guess her thoughts: Liramal, you witling, you're throwing away the biggest chance of your career. But I couldn't tell her my own thoughts. I knew, because I'd tried. Did she know what it was. to have a trade but lack a purpose? Had she ever spent five years of her life knowing her talents to be ultimately pointless. no matter how great they were? Could she imagine it?
"I have had such dreams," said His Scarlet Eminence the Regent, and this time it was I who was surprised. First Priest of the Faith of the Twin Forces, Regent to the Levar of Liavek, and he had dreamed of being something else? There were ten thousand wizards, but only a few First Priests—and only one Regent. "I invest my luck every year, so it is no lie to say I am a wizard. But I have learned only a slight ability to tell the future, and that only when life and death are involved."
Interesting, finding common ground between the most powerful man in Liavek and the sixteen-year-old waif whose cittern was all that kept him from being a beggar. But I would never be even that much of a wizard, and it hurt to discuss it.
"Yes, it would be a fine life, to be a wizard and cast spells from Wizard's Row. But instead I am a musician, and I play where I choose. Perhaps that is reward enough." And perhaps the Levar would walk in her park some day, and hear me play on my terms. Not that I really cared.
"Play me one more song," said His Scarlet Eminence impassively. ''Then I will leave you." At that his guards stepped smoothly forward and flanked him.
"Here's one I wrote," I said, and played the opening chords to ''The Bregas Street Baker." Then I sang:
The Bregas Street baker sells bread by the slice,
He cooks rolls in ovens and stores them on ice,
His wares aren't worth stealing; he never stands guard,
His pies are too tasteless, his cakes are too hard....
After three verses His Scarlet Eminence nodded and threw me a leather coin purse. I broke rhythm just long enough to catch it, one-handed, holding down the chord with my left hand to make it sound like a dramatic sustain. "Thank you, Your Eminence," I said as I dropped the purse at my feet—it was surprisingly heavy—and resumed playing. But he simply walked away.
•
I wanted to buy Iranda dinner, so she and I walked toward Mama Neldasa's. Besides, a storm was coming up. Dozens of times in the past I had had no coppers at all for a room, and spent stormy nights huddled under my tree, protecting the cittern as best I could with the shelter of my body. I had no wish to repeat the experience.
On a small bench outside a cobbler's shop I sat down to count the contents of the purse. It came to a round twenty levars. Whistling in amazement, I did a fast recount. Twenty levars. Iranda stood by, watching in shared surprise.
The cobbler, a tired-looking woman of well over sixty, called out, "Closing shop! If you are customers, I give you five minutes!" She stood looking over a rack of ready-made shoes, boots, and sandals, staring at Iranda and me.
"I'll be back," I told her jauntily. I dropped the last of the coins into the purse, stood up, and took Iranda by the hand. Five minutes and a few blocks later, with soft mist just beginning to fall from the sky, we stood outside Mama Neldasa's.
Mama Neldasa's had been a second home to me for five years. Mama had watched me grow from a sturdy eleven-year-old, kicked out by the parents who had abused him from birth, through a frail, starving thirteen-year-old—she had given me half a hundred free meals that winter—to my current sixteen-year-old self, accepting everything about his lot in life save its pointlessness. I had played for her customers on Luckday nights each of these five winters. but it was more a friendly arrangement than a business one: my only pay was the coppers that customers left in my old leather hat, and frankly, except during the worst weather I would have made more money in the Levar's Park. Iranda had been here a few times, though she lodged elsewhere.
I pulled open the heavy wooden door and motioned Iranda through. Mama met us both, wearing a matronly smile. "Liramal!" she said. "And your friend. A pleasure to serve you both."
I smiled. Mama had said those words, or similar ones, to thousands of customers, yet they always sounded new and sincere. "And a pleasure it is to be here, Mama. Find us a table for two; tonight we're honest customers"
Mama seated us at a small wooden table near the rear wall. Not far to the left, the inn's famous fireplace roared warmth and camaraderie and security into the room. At the long table between us and the door, a man who sounded like a Tichenese noble argued good-naturedly with a local merchant about the cost of outfitting caravans. I thought of how much easier it would be to outfit a caravan for the trip to Dondar and refill the water bags. replenish the other provisions, at Dondar itself. But it was only idle fancy. The well at Dondar had given water for exactly one hundred years after Navar gave his life to restore it, but since then no wizard of Liavek or Tichen had been able to get anything from it but dust.
The serving hoy brought us each a bowl of rich fish chowder. stepping carefully around my cittern where it leaned against the table. Iranda had one spoonful, and then spoke. "I worry about you, my young friend," she said. "Do you have any idea what you turned down today'?"
"A chance I don't really want," I said. "If I have a purpose besides playing music, I should be fulfilling that purpose. If I have no such purpose, playing for the Levar won't make me feel any better."
"But, Liramal," she said, "why don't you just play for her anyway, and put the money she gives you into clothes and cittern strings? Is there a reason?"
"Yes, there is." I put my spoon into my bowl, but left it there. "The Levar is twelve years old. She has a palace, courtiers, people waiting in line for audiences, His Scarlet Eminence to make big state decisions for her, and the admiration of the whole city. When I was twelve years old,
or pretty near, I was kicked out of the house with only the clothes on my back. I almost starved before I went back to steal my father's cittern. And then I almost starved anyway, because I could just barely play it and nobody gave me coppers."
I could see Iranda just sitting there, pensive, trying to let it all soak in. "Then you could hardly be expected to speak to her with the proper deference," she finally said.
"Hardly," I said, and dug into my chowder with a will.
"Liramal," Iranda said intently, "it won't matter for a week or two—but be careful dealing with His Scarlet Eminence. He doesn't strike me as someone who changes course easily."
"Why won't it matter for a week or two? What makes you think I'll ever deal with him again?"
"He didn't get what he wanted," Iranda said. "If it's important to him, he'll be back. And Liramal, I know you don't trust anybody's judgments except your own, but I was watching when you and he were talking."
"And?"
"And it was the craziest conversation I've ever witnessed! You started out hostile. Then inside three sentences you were telling him that you wanted to be a wizard. You'd known me for two years before you told me that! I think he was doing something to make you talk—some bought-spell for loosening the tongues of prisoners or something."
"Nonsense,"' I said. "I often speak freely to customers. Especially ones I don't expect to see again. Why discuss it?"
Iranda was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice held the flatness of someone who knows she will not be believed. "He wants something of you, Liramal. He needs you for something, and he wants to find out as much as he can about you."
A purpose. ''I'm not afraid," I said. 'That is, I'm certainly not afraid of waking up to find myself doing His Scarlet Eminence's bidding. I just don't want to play for the Levar."
The serving boy showed up again, belatedly delivering us two cups of yhinroot tea and a loaf of Mama Neldasa's fine homemade bread. I tore off a corner of the loaf, and Iranda and I sat there for a minute or two, just letting time and our thoughts go past.
Then the storm hit.
A furious gust of wind blew the door open. Mama flung it shut again and barred it. "Nobody's going anywhere until this lifts," she shouted. "You may as well eat."
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