“Let me buy ya some lunch.”
“Not today, thanks. I only just finished breakfast.”
“You hath only just risen? You hath a need to vacate this city and do some real Hero work.”
“I’ll be fine here, thanks. There are more than enough exots turning up around here theses days.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’ve killed three this week. One of them was this morning, which was the reason for my delayed breakfast.” That wasn’t a complete lie.
“Really?”
“Yes. Waydin had some dwarves cleaning up the mess when I left.”
Weaver looked around, checking for listeners. Satisfied they were unobserved, he leaned over and whispered, “I think there must be sorcerers hiding in Katamood, Rawk.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It is always sorcerers opening portals to let exots through. Always. I am going to have to send out the Guard, I think. I will have them search door to door until I find the culprits.”
Rawk nodded slowly as he tried to think. “Aren’t you over-reacting a bit?” Sylvia was one of the ‘culprits’ that would most likely be found. If some guards started asking questions her name was bound to come up.
“I don’t think so. I’ll start south of the river, because that’s where they’ll be, I’m sure.”
Rawk nodded some more. “Perhaps.” Sylvia was right near the top of Mount Grace, so it would be a while before any search got to her place, but still... “I thought you wanted exots for me to kill. The good old days, remember?”
“But you don’t want the good old days. You said so. And exots are one thing. Sorcerers are quite another.”
“I know. But... What will the people say if they think you don’t have everything under control?”
“If I don’t uphold the law...” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you protecting sorcerers?”
“I’m not protecting sorcerers.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“Well, just because I don’t want to take part in the good old days myself, doesn’t mean I don’t like the excitement of being around when others do it.”
Weaver sat back in his seat. “Huh,” he said, forgetting his accent. “I told you so. Give it a few more weeks and you’ll be out there hunting for the exots. But that’s beside the point, anyway.” He looked around again and leaned in close. “I can’t have sorcerers wandering around the city.”
“How much will these searches cost you?”
“Well...”
Rawk knew he’d found the right argument. “Just hold off for a while and let me see what I can find for you.”
Weaver pursed his lips. “You would do that? I don’t want the people to panic. Very well. I will give you a week, no more. And then every spare man will be out looking. That will show the people of Katamood who’s in charge.”
“I’m sure it will.”
Weaver gave a nod, as if it was all sorted out. “Now, what did you say you wanted for lunch?”
Rawk sighed. “Potato stew, of course.”
Weaver smiled. “Excellent. Let’s go inside and order.”
They found a table, though that was probably because a guard came in first and suggested that somebody move. Rawk sat down but didn’t even have a chance to take his cutlery from the pouch on his belt. He saw Ramaner standing in the doorway, looking even more angry than normal.
“What have I done this time?” he muttered.
“Pardon?”
Rawk didn’t say anything, merely motioning to the general. Weaver turned to look.
“Ramaner, what do you want?” Rawk asked when the small precession arrived beside the table.
The general sneered but turned to look at Weaver. He cleared his throat and glanced around the room. “Gavin Tuug, of Tharpin?”
Weaver was looking confused. “Yes.”
“You are under arrest.”
He looked even more confused. “What for?”
Ramaner took a moment to think of something. Something that would require him to come down from the palace instead of just sending some cheaper men. “Conspiracy to commit treason.”
Weaver obviously didn’t understand that Ramaner wanted to talk to him but was trying to let the prince keep his cover. “I didn’t do anything,” he said.
Rawk smiled. “You know Gavin is from Tharpin, right?”
Now Ramaner was confused. “Yes.”
“So, he cannot actually commit treason against Katamood. The charges would have to be something about espionage, I imagine.”
“Shut up, Rawk.”
“I’m just saying.”
Ramaner leaned in close. His eyes were full of hatred, dark and heavy like a storm. “Just be thankful I’m not arresting you as well. You could well be one of the people he is conspiring with.”
“You know as well as I do that Prince Weaver wouldn’t let you get away with that.”
Ramaner didn’t take his eyes off Rawk as he spoke to Weaver. “Get up now, Gavin, before I decide you are too much trouble and skip the judge.”
“I’m not sure you are allowed to do that,” Rawk said, watching the other man carefully.
Ramaner’s eye twitched. His gripped the hilt of his sword a little bit tighter than was necessary, turning his knuckles white. He leaned in close and whispered. “One day, Weaver won’t be around to protect you, Rawk.”
Rawk smiled. “Perhaps you should go with him, Gavin. Get this mess cleared up.”
He watched as Weaver was marched from the now silent common room and waved when Ramaner glanced back. When the guards and their prisoner had left, the conversation picked up in the room once more. In normal circumstances Gavin of Tharpin would have been the main topic of conversation, but seeing nobody fell for the disguise the whole incident was quickly forgotten. And as the noise swelled, Rawk was pleased to realize he was all alone and no food had been ordered, so he could leave any time he liked.
“That went rather well,” he said. He clapped his hands on the table and rose to his feet. The walk up the hill to the Hero’s Rest didn’t seem so bad.
-O-
There was a fiddle player in the corner of the taproom working as hard as he could, but the man could hardly be heard above the din. Thin notes darted about the room, looking for others to join in some kind of melody. The smell of spices filled the gaps.
“Rawk?”
Rawk looked around. “Travis. Good crowd.” He gestured to the musician. “Is that Lika Olend?”
Travis nodded.
“He’s supposed to be pretty good.” Rawk tried to listen again, but it was useless.
“So they say.”
“Shame we can’t actually hear him.”
“Yes.”
“Bit of a waste of money, really.”
Travis shrugged. “Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you can’t have a musician that draws a crowd and then complain about the crowd.”
“You can hear the musicians at The Armory.”
“Yes, but the music is the point there. Here the point is the ale and the food.”
Rawk nodded slowly. “You’re right. Can you come down stairs when you have a couple of minutes? I had an idea earlier and I need your help.”
“An idea?” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Just come downstairs.”
“Very well.”
Rawk headed out the back door and went down the stairs. It wasn’t often anyone went down there. Not that he knew of anyway. It was dark at the bottom. He groped at the wall for a moment until he located a torch, then took the flint and striker from a pouch on his belt and put them to use. The dancing, orange light showed a hallway. It was five yards from where he stood to a closed door at the far end and there were doors on either side, halfway along. One of them gave access to the private stairs that led all the way up to his rooms. Taking the torch, he wen
t to the final door and managed to shoulder it open, but didn’t go any further. Beyond wasn’t nearly as impressive or exciting as he remembered.
The room was filled with weapons. Swords, maces, crossbows, flails, shields, armor. There were racks and shelves, hooks and drawers. There were piles in the corners and overflowing barrels. Forty years of loot filling the room from wall to wall with just a narrow walkway leading to the back wall and the two doors that occupied it. Once, Rawk had been able to tell the story behind each and every piece of equipment. He might still remember them if pushed. A sword given to him by the King of Keplamar. He’d killed a rebeth to earn it. A shield he’d scooped up while fighting the Fezen Champion on the battlefield of Dorn. Forty years. His history. His life. And every story was pretty much the same. Death. It was always about death. Not his, yet, but the day would come. He wondered who would have his sword when that happened.
Once it had been easy to keep the room neat and tidy but it looked as if Travis had long since given up. It was possible he hadn’t even been down here for years, because Rawk was paid in gold more than anything else these days and didn’t go around collecting trophies.
Travis arrived a few minutes later.
“This had better be good, I have work to do.”
Rawk smiled. “You normally spend more time running around after me than anything else.”
Travis sighed. “How did I end up working for you again?”
“Luck, I guess.”
“Yeah, bad luck. So, what are we doing down here?”
“I’m going to clean all this up and...”
“Wait, surely you mean I’m going to clean up.”
“No, Rawk the Invincible is going to battle the mess. You, noble friend, are going shopping.” He hung the torch just inside the door.
“Are you all right?”
His arm ached a lot this afternoon. His knee ached. And the chair at the cafe had been terrible and the kitchen bench... he had a kink in his back that made it painful to twist. He shrugged.
“Well, you could have sent me shopping from upstairs, surely. And can’t someone else do it, anyway? I’ll help here or... Or do the work I’m actually paid for.”
“You’re paid to do whatever I want, Travis; you should know that by now.”
“Well, there may be limits to what I’m willing to do, you know.”
“I have a horrible feeling that we will find out very soon.” Rawk turned to look at his friend. “It won’t be today though, Travis. I just need you to go out and buy some books for me.”
“Books? Now I know you’re unwell.”
“I know. What’s the world coming to, right?”
“So, out with it then.”
“It’s all these exots.”
“You’re buying books for them to read? Keep them busy?”
“No. The point is, I can’t keep up. My arm is going to fall off soon. Or I’ll find one that I can’t beat. All the new Heroes turning up can’t keep up either. It only takes a minute for innocent people to be killed.”
“Still don’t know what you’re after.”
“Magic, Travis. And that’s why I couldn’t tell you upstairs, in case someone heard.” Rawk leaned against the doorframe and rubbed his face. “These creatures must be coming through portals and someone must be opening them.”
“Right.”
“And now Weaver has got it into his head that he’s going to send the guard out into the city to find whoever’s doing it.”
“And you want to beat them to it?”
“Exactly. I need the money. So, go and buy me some books about magic.”
“Books on magic?”
“Yes, and books about exots. As many as you can find. There’s a bookshop just west of Mount Cheese. Go and talk to Juskin first.”
“You know the owner of a bookshop by name?”
“Yes. Shut up.”
Travis shook his head. “And what if I get caught?”
“Then I’ll sort it out. Just don’t get caught.”
Travis sighed but went to do as he was asked and Rawk turned to his own task.
He followed the path to the back of the room and lit another torch before opening the first of the doors. Wrong one. The room was filled with clothes. Silks and brocades, dresses and pantaloons. Garments from all around the world, most of them never worn. Most of them he wouldn’t be seen dead in, though Weaver would have had endless fun organizing his disguises. He grunted and closed the door.
The other room was slightly larger and had a couple a chests full of gold in the back corner and a scattering of other things— valuables and crates and chests that had once held even more gold. Once, it had been full of the stuff. Chests and bags and barrels full to overflowing. Slippery, glinting mountains of the stuff. Coins, goblets, bowls, candelabra, serving platters. Gold and silver and gems. A fortune to rival the nobles’ who swanned through he streets of Katamood as if they owned them. Not any more. He remembered the term Yardi had used. A ‘diversified portfolio.’ Or something like that. There was still enough gold there for him to live comfortably for the rest of his life, if he wanted but now, it was just in the way. It would take too long to move and his knee would not like it at all. He left the full chests and moved anything that was worth money into a pile close by. Then he gathered some of the other things into a big crate and dragged it into the weapons room. He tried to make it a bit tidy, but that was silly when nothing else in the room was neat. So he cleared a spot for it and slid it out of the way and piled more stuff on top. Then he went back for more.
Half an hour later, sweating and aching in so many places he nearly forgot about his knee and his shoulder and all his usual aches, he decided the cleaning was done. Relieved, he grabbed the torch as he made his way into the hallway and down to the door at the far end. Beyond was the largest room in the cellar complex. It was easily as large as the taproom and crammed full of everything that wasn’t weapons or clothes or treasure. Some, like the high-backed Mindor saddle, was loot, but a lot was just stuff he had somehow accumulated. There were artworks, rugs, cooking pots, bags of spice from around the world— he should let Kalesie know about those, if they were still any good— and maps. And in the corner, right across the other side of the room of course, was furniture, hardly more than hulking black beasts in the flickering darkness.
Rawk followed a snaking trail through the mess, kicking stuff out of the way as he went, choking on the heavy clouds of dust that roiled around him, to see what he could see. There were a couple of shelves that might be handy. And a desk he could definitely use. I never thought I’d have to say something like that. He gave a grunt of amusement.
While he waited for Travis to return, Rawk looked around in the dancing light of the torch. There was an old ledger in the top drawer of the desk. It contained line after line of small neat text. As far as Rawk could tell, it had something to do with the importation of animal skins from Tharpin. It was twenty years old but the prices were very good. In the next drawer there was an inkpot with flaking, redolent black ink lining the inside.
There was a square of material on a bookshelf that might have been torn from a flag or pennant. Behind a pile of chairs, none of which were any good, was an old chest with rusting hinges and a broken lock. There was a ceramic vase on the floor and he propped the torch up inside so he could flip open the lid of the chest and look inside. There were some scraps of paper and what looked like the remains of a cushion. He almost moved on but crouched down and picked up some of the paper. Most of the writing had faded away to almost nothing. Rawk managed to decipher something about flushing cheeks and coy looks so he was glad he couldn’t read any more.
Beneath the papers and the snowdrift of feathers, hardly visible in the dust and shadows, was a bag and inside the bag was... Rawk didn’t know what it was at first. He pulled it out and it still took him a moment to realize it was a drum. The same type of drum that Grint used when he played in the Armory with Celeste. The light colored timber f
rame was shot through with swirls of grain. One of the little double-headed sticks was clipped onto the inside. The skin was stiff and dark and smelled of... something.
Rawk pulled to stick out and gave an experimental tap. Remembering how the dwarf played the drum, he tried to do the same. Apparently it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Grint made music that didn’t seem possible with just one simple drum while his own efforts sounded like a stampede of cattle. He stopped with a pained wince. “Maybe not.”
“Maybe not, what?”
Rawk almost dropped the drum as he spun about. Travis was standing in the doorway with an armload of books clutched precariously under one arm. In his other hand was a lamp. A real lamp with a bright, steady white light.
“Maybe I shouldn’t try playing the drum.”
“What?”
Rawk held up the offending object. “I found this.”
“Oh. Well, I could have told you not to try.”
“Why’s that?”
“You like music, I like music; we wouldn’t want to spoil it.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”
“That’s all right. Now, what do you want me to do with these? They’re a bit heavy.”
Rawk looked at the books. “There’s only six of them.”
“They’re pretty big though. And I think they’re every book in the city. So, where can I put these?”
“Oh, sorry, just in the gold room.” Rawk waved in the general direction then followed when Travis went out into the hall.
Travis was standing in the doorway to the weapon room when Rawk arrived. “You know this doesn’t count as tidying up, right. You have to lessen the mess, not just move it somewhere else.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me that before? I think it’s the first time I’ve ever tried to tidy anything; it’s trickier than it looks.”
“I suppose it’s pretty good for your first try.” Travis made his way through the increased clutter to the gold room and put the books on the floor near the wall, just inside the door.
Rawk went to have a look. Blinking at the spines, stretching out his arm, he read the titles. “Magic of the Old Ways. A Witches Guide to Portals. Fire Magic. Bedlam’s Book of Spells and Potions. Natural Energy. Convergence.” He sniffed. “That’s it? Did you see Juskin?”
A History of Magic Page 2