They walked on.
Ahead, a dwarf armorer worked at a portable forge, beneath a sign that proclaimed, in awkward Erendra phonetics, that he sold genuine Nehera bowies. His list of posted prices looked reasonable, but Jason didn't stop. For one thing, he didn't need any blades. He had a good sword at the left side of his belt and a bowie at his right—and both of them had actually been made by Nehera; Jason knew full well that this blacksmith was selling only weak imitations.
But pointing that out wouldn't accomplish anything except drawing attention to himself.
Another copy of the broadside he had seen before caught his eye.
Are You a Swordsman or Bowman with Great Skill and Greater Ambition? it still wanted to know.
Possibly, he decided.
Over by a fountain, a flute player and a dancer were setting up; he sitting down crosslegged on his straw mat, she stripping off layers of clothes, leaving behind little besides a few silks and beads. While most of her face was hidden by a silken veil, the rest looked interesting. She started to move in time to the flutist's hesitant runs, then stopped as the crowd gathered.
He started to move toward where the show was obviously going to be, but Doria caught his arm.
Her look held only disappointment. "Look again," she said.
This time, Jason saw the black iron collar, almost hidden by the silks, and was more than a little disgusted with himself.
"Sort of an owned dancing prostitute," Doria said. "She'll get the men worked up, and then take them on, one by one," she said, in a flat expressionless voice. She shook her head, as though to say that there was nothing that he could do, so there was no shame in doing nothing.
"We go left here," she said.
The Hand Residence stood out on the street like a clean spot on a well-used napkin; the other two-story stone buildings on the narrow street sagged with age, the cracks in the stone mortared in places, all crumbling around the edges.
The Hand Residence, though, looked new, the corners of the building sharp as razors, the granite blocks clean enough to suggest that dirt was intimidated away. Jason pulled up the horses, set the brake, and gathered his gear together, while Doria climbed down from the wagon.
"I'll just be a short while. I have your word that you will be here when I come out, Jason." She raised an eyebrow.
"You do."
Doria looked at him for a long moment, then eased herself down to the street and walked in through the Residence's archway, without a glance behind.
She disappeared into the dark of the building.
Now was his chance to disappear, but . . .
But he wouldn't. He wouldn't let her talk him out of anything, but he'd given his word.
I may be a coward, but I don't have to be a liar, too,
Jason chuckled to himself. Idiot. He noticed another copy of that same broadside on the wall beside him, and glanced at it.
Great Risk Great Pay
Are You a Swordsman or Bowman with Great Skill
and Greater Ambition?
AHRMIN, Master Slaver
is hiring WARRIORS
for an expedition past Faerie.
Apply immediately at the Slavers' Guildhall.
TRAINING in the ART of GUNNERY will be
provided.
* * *
A Cook, Armorer, Cobbler, and Smith are also needed.
Great Pay Great Risk
* * *
Past Faerie? That meant Melawei. The slavers raided into Melawei all the time, but they didn't hire mercenaries to help them. They'd only do that if there was something more dangerous than a bunch of Mel—
No.
Father was going after the sword, and Ahrmin was going after him.
He snatched the broadside down from the wall and dashed for the arching door. "Doria!"
Two slim women emerged from the shadows, barring his way. "You may not enter the Residence, Jason Cullinane," the nearest one said.
"Doria!" he shouted again.
But there was no answer.
"I have to see her—"
"You may not enter."
Neither of them was close to his size; he tried to push past them as gently as possible, but one of them caught his left wrist with her slim hand, the long, delicate fingers wrapping themselves tightly around his wrist.
He should have been able to break the grip with a twitch of his arm, but as the woman muttered words that could only be uttered and forgotten, her grip tightened, and then tightened some more, until his bones threatened to break.
Time froze as Jason's free hand fastened on the hilt of his bowie, and he started to draw his knife.
"Ta havath," Doria's clear contralto proclaimed, shattering the moment. "What is it, Jason?" she asked, separating him from the others, rubbing at his wrist with strong fingers that seemed to ease the pain magically, even if he knew that was impossible.
"Read this."
Doria's face went ashen. "Past Faerie. It—"
"It has to mean what we think it does," Jason said. "These are going up all over the city."
"It must be," Doria said, as she turned to the other two Hand women. Their fingers met and clasped for a moment, before she turned back to Jason.
"The word is out," she said. "Karl is making an overland try for the sword, and Ahrmin plans to beat him by sea." She gripped his arm, with far more strength than she had any right to. "He's painted a target on his back, and Ahrmin is setting sail to put a cluster of arrows in the bullseye."
Jason nodded. "How soon?"
"I don't know. But we had best find out."
"That we had."
* * *
The night passed slowly, as they lay on their blankets in the single room they had rented. The night was hot and muggy; sweat ran down Jason's forehead and into his eyes as he sat at the window, looking out into the street.
He rubbed his stinging eyes. He couldn't sleep; it was just too hot. He uncorked a jug of water and tilted it back. The water was blood temperature; it quelled his thirst without giving him any satisfaction at all.
"I don't know, Doria—what can we do?"
Getting an opportunity to kill Ahrmin was out, now; the slaver was due to leave in only a couple of days, and he'd certainly be unusually careful until he left, his suspicious mind open to the possibility of an attack.
Of course, Jason could sign on with Ahrmin . . . possibly.
But what good would that do?
Doria muttered a few harsh words that could only be forgotten. Jason turned to see a fat, dark-haired woman of about fifty, who reminded him of U'len.
"I picked it from your mind," Doria said. "U'len looks like a cook. I . . ." Her voice trailed off into a gurgle, as she staggered back against the wall and slipped to the floor, one outstretched arm fluttering at him to keep his distance.
I can't help you," she said, her form shimmering, waves of shadow washing across her bulk. The voice wasn't hers, not really, it was richer, deeper, older, more powerful.
"No," she said in her own voice. "I can do what—"
"No. I can't—"
"Yes. I can take on a form that will protect me. I can go where I please, and I can disguise myself for my own protection. For my own protection, I can disguise myself."
She clenched her fists tightly, leaning back into shadow as dark sweat beaded on her forehead.
Jason picked up a cloth, uncorked the water jug to wet it, and went to wipe her forehead.
"No. Keep your distance. My burden. Price to . . . pay for challenging the Mother."
He pushed aside the vague fingers and daubed at her face. "Easy, Doria. Easy."
The cloth came away dark with blood.
Doria held up a hand. "Don't come closer. You'll only make it worse."
His gorge rose; he fell to his hands and knees and vomited until he was bent over double, his belly wracked with pain from the dry heaves.
"Jason . . . I'll be okay. Jason. Jason."
He waved her away as he tr
ied to get his churning belly under control. He had to; he just had to. If they were going to sign up with Ahrmin tomorrow, he'd have to be in command of himself.
"I'll . . . be okay, too," he said. "And call me Taren. Even when we're alone."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Ahrmin
In a well-governed country, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a badly governed country, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
—Kung-Fu-Tze
His heart thrumming a steady backbeat, Jason slowly advanced in the line outside the Slavers' Guildhall.
He wasn't impressed with the others in line with him; they were a dirty bunch of swordsmen.
But he couldn't really look down on them. Maybe they weren't cowards.
"Where you from, boy?" the man in front of him asked, probably just to make conversation.
Jason ignored him. The man took a too-long moment deciding whether or not to take offense, decided against it and then struck up a conversation with the man in front of him.
Doria had warned Jason about getting involved in idle chatter. It wasn't a deliberate interrogation he had to worry about—he knew enough about the fictitious Taren ip Therranj to answer questions—but an accidental slip.
It was a deceptively pretty building, or set of buildings: four connected three-storied structures of glistening white marble, surrounding an interior courtyard. Each of the linked buildings was supported by a pair of high fluted columns, guarding an entry arch.
He had seen the spreading branches of an ancient oak through an archway. It looked gorgeous, rising cleanly into the sky.
But the facade faded at the edges. A pair of rag-clad Mel women, the younger about Jason's age, the other perhaps a decade older, were on their hands and knees a short way down the corridor to Jason's left, scrubbing the floor under the watchful eye of a half-tunic-clad boy, of about fifteen or so, who, every now and then, snapped his many-stranded whip to draw their attention to missed spots, real or not.
Jason wasn't sure what the purpose of it all was, or if the boy was merely being cruel to no purpose. Blood was trickling down the back of the younger of the two women, staining the marble, causing the slaver to redouble his efforts.
Jason turned his face away, but the sound persisted.
The line in front of him slowly shrank. Over the background noise of whip cracks and stifled screams, the guard at the door looked into the room beyond and nodded.
The grizzled soldier in front of him had been gone only a few moments when the guard nodded at Jason.
"Next. Taren ip Therranj."
Jason followed the guard's gesture into the outer room, where a skinny, cringing man knelt in front of him with a damp rag.
"To wash your feet," the guard explained, as the slave began scrubbing at Jason's sandals and feet. "Must mind the carpeting, even in the Stranger's Room."
The soap felt slimy between his toes. Jason forced himself not to let the disgust he felt show in his face.
"Lift your arms," the guard said, patting Jason down thoroughly, checking even the contents of Jason's purse, and, after a quick explanatory gesture, even checking to be sure that there was nothing in Jason's scabbard other than his sword.
"Nice blade," the guard said, slipping Jason's saber back into its scabbard and handing it to Jason. "You can keep that; I'll need the beltknife."
Jason handed over his bowie. He wasn't worried that the Nehera markings on sword or bowie would expose him; smiths all over were trying to copy the dwarf smith's striations, even if they couldn't get quite the same strength and sharpness from their own inferior steel or quite the same edge from imported Home wootz.
"And now," the guard said, knocking a staccato tattoo against the oaken door, "they should be ready for you."
* * *
He wasn't sure what he had expected, but this wasn't it.
The room was about as he'd thought it would be: high ceiling above, plush crimson carpet below, the pile tickling his ankles. One wall was windowed, the glass—far clearer, less mottled than the best that Home and Holtun-Bieme could boast of—revealed a huge oak that stood in the courtyard between the buildings that made up the guildhall.
The other wall was covered with a faded tapestry. Or perhaps it wasn't really a tapestry; the endless scenes of buxom young women in iron collars and chains kneeling before muscular, whip-bearing men seemed to repeat in some sort of odd progression—it could have been some sort of complex print.
The two guards to either side of the large padded chair impressed Jason. Even the slightly smaller one was larger than Father; they were armored from greaves to helmet; each man held a short fighting spear easily, comfortably.
Jason wasn't surprised that Ahrmin would have a bodyguard—under these circumstances, it would otherwise have been too easy for Karl to send an assassin into Ahrmin's presence.
Between the two, sitting comfortably in the chair, was a small man in a dark slaver's robe.
He was repulsive, of course. What Jason could see of the side of his face that the slaver turned away was an awful brown mass; the right side of his cheek was gone, revealing gapped, yellowing teeth and burned gums. A claw of a right hand was almost concealed in the folds of his robes.
Jason had expected something more than a crippled little man in a chair. From all that he had heard about Ahrmin—from him, from Tennetty, from Valeran, from Mother—Jason had expected an aura, an atmosphere of evil to surround him.
There was nothing of the sort. "Taren ip Therranj?" Ahrmin asked, consulting a sheet of paper in his lap. "Swordsman, it says."
Jason nodded. "I am."
"Good. You're willing to take a risk for good pay?"
"Yes."
Ahrmin nodded, turning to the guard on his left. "Fenrius, I like the looks of this one."
"Your pardon, Master Ahrmin," the big man said, "but our manifest is only halfway full, and the day is no longer young. We need to hire a cook, and at least another—"
"Yes, yes, it's just that I used to be a swordsman, when I was younger. I like to talk to the type." He gestured to Jason. "Show me something."
"I fight two-swords-style. The guard outside took my second."
"Pretend. Please. And we do not have all day, as Fenrius quite properly pointed out."
Jason reached across his waist and drew his saber with his right hand, pretending to draw his bowie with his left.
He tried to repeat his battle with Kyreen, with a few minor improvements: Jason parried an imaginary lunge, but the fact that there was no blade to beat aside put him off. Still, he feigned a high-line attack with his saber, binding his imaginary opponent's blade and slipping in until they were chest to chest.
This time, he did it right: He blocked his opponent's imaginary dagger with his sword arm, switching grips on the imaginary bowie and bringing it almost straight up.
If there had been a real opponent, Jason would have opened his side from hip to ribcage.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Fenrius and the other guard change positions slightly. In his mock swordfight, Jason had edged a bit closer to Ahrmin, and the slaver's guards had moved to block any possible attack.
They couldn't suspect him, could they? No, he decided, not specifically; they were just being careful on general principles.
Jason raised his sword in a casual salute to Ahrmin. You're a dead man. Not now, it seems, but soon.
"Quite nice," Ahrmin said, nodding in response to Jason's salute. "Quite nice indeed. You move smoothly; I'll be interested to see how you do with a gun." He looked over at Fenrius. "Which ship should we put him on?"
The big man turned toward Jason, like a cannon being rotated on its wheels. "We will be taking two ships. Master Ahrmin will be on the Flail; most of the inexperienced gunners and instructors will be on the Scourge. Which would you prefer?"
Well, there clearly was one wrong answer. Jason shrugged. "It sounds like the Scourge would make more sense, for training purposes. But you haven't tol
d me the important information."
"Which is?" Fenrius raised an eyebrow.
"Which one has the better food?"
Ahrmin laughed thinly. "My ship. But we'll put you on the other. You're a clever man, Taren, and I don't like having clever men too near me." He waved a dismissal. "We sail at sunrise tomorrow. That is all."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Return to Pandathaway
Every once in a while, I wake up and realize where I am and what I'm doing, and then it occurs to me: Stash and Emma Slovotsky's baby boy is an asshole.
—Walter Slovotsky
Walter Slovotsky had wanted to stay in the Inn of Quiet Repose, but Ahira had overruled him: granted, they hadn't been in Pandathaway for years, but Tommallo might recognize them.
Still, they would have to make up their minds and make their arrangements soon; it was late afternoon, and the sun sat only about ten degrees above the horizon.
He stretched his arms as he sat on the passenger's side of the flatbed wagon, then continued the motion to grab the muslin sack of jerky behind the bench seat. After serving himself, he offered the bag around; everyone else declined, except for Tennetty.
"Still think it'd be worth a try."
It had been years and years since they'd first come through Pandathaway, but Walter could still remember the meal they'd had in the inn. Wonderful, wonderful food.
"We'll try another inn," the dwarf said, bouncing up and down on the back of his pony. "Nearer the docks. We'll want to sell our cargo, as long as we're here. But I don't want to take any chances on being made. Understood?"
Bren Adahan twitched his reins. "What's the difference? There's no price on your head."
"Not specifically," the dwarf admitted. "But the Slavers' Guild still has a reward out for Home warriors. I think we qualify, so we'll keep a low profile."
"Right," Tennetty said, sitting next to him, as she drove their flatbed wagon. She flicked the switch at the left drayhorse; the animal lowered its head and slogged on. "That's my vote."
Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Page 19