by Andre Norton
Even if he sought out his “target” and confessed all, the high priest would most likely express his gratitude by ordering Alven to dispatch the smaller priest. And afterward, even supposing he could accomplish that feat, he’d be marked for death himself, as a turncoat. . . .
Or—
—he could attempt the deed. . . .
And surely be slain in the doing. Alven had few illusions as to his ability to best one of Thotharn’s high ones with ordinary steel. At least that way I could hide the gold in the house where Mother would find it, he thought gloomily. It’d keep her comfortable for the rest of her years. . . .
Somehow none of those alternatives seemed at all appealing. But at least if he confessed all to the captain of the fair-wards, he might still be alive to hear his mother’s opinion of her idiot son . . . and hear it, and hear it. . . .
On the other hand, death definitely had its points. . . . Alven scraped his plate, then scrubbed the dishes. After checking the robes that were soaking in the huge laundry tubs, he threw himself down on his narrow cot, so tired that even his eyelids ached. Sky Lords, he thought fuzzily, help me decide what is best to do. . .
He shut his eyes, falling into a near doze, his mind running the conversation through his head over and over. Why hadn’t he realized what the man was talking about? What exactly had he said? He’d guaranteed his work, mentioned a fee, and—
“Oh, no!” Alven found himself on his feet, racing toward the door with his heart threatening to bound from his chest. I told him I had a partner! I told him I worked with my mother! If the high priest gets wind of any of this, he’ll come looking for both of us!
He had to find her; then, together, they’d go to the fair-wards. Even if the brass-hats locked them both up, a night in the temple dungeon was preferable to what Thotharn’s high priest might do. Rumor held that they had spies everywhere, some of them not human. It was said they could eavesdrop on conversations through the eyes and ears of spiders, or vee-lizards, or almost anything small that crawled. . . .
Alven bolted through the laughing, bustling crowd of fairgoers, gulping for air as he zigged and zagged, trying desperately to find the shortest path through the throng. His mother usually frequented the wineshops and drinking booths. He checked so suddenly he almost pitched onto his face as he spotted a familiar gray skirt and silver laces straining across a well-filled bodice. “Jenilyn! Jeni!”
“Alven?” The woman turned away from her bull-chested escort, her professional smile fading like morning mist as she saw the youth’s face. “What’s happened? What—”
“Mother! I have to find her! Have you seen her?”
“She was over by the Joyous Goblet—”
“May the Three reward you! Bring the captain, quick!” Alven was off again, his words trailing behind him like threads on the night breeze.
He reached the tavern and paused outside for a second, desperately trying to steady his breathing. He mustn’t panic her. . . .
Then he went in.
The smoky darkness inside was filled with a din of laughter, singing, and squeals from the barmaids. Taverngoers jostled each other, slopping drinks and food grease everywhere—the floor beneath Alven’s buskins was by turns sticky and slippery. He began elbowing his way across the room when he spotted a familiar shawl. As he neared his mother, he saw that she was talking earnestly with a massive, black-bearded man—Master Renkath!
“Mother!” Alven called, putting his hand on her arm. “We have to—”
“Well, if it isn’t Alven!” his mother said, beaming up at him. “The gem master here was just telling me why you were late to home. Why didn’t you say—”
“We have to go, Mother, right now!” Alven tugged at her shawl, trying to keep his panic from breaking free. “I’ll explain—”
The words died in his mouth as his narrowed eyes penetrated the blue haze of the tavern to make out a small, shadowy figure sitting at the back table. There was a glint of gold on the chest.
“Oh, no!” Alven grabbed his mother by the arm and swung her about, heading for the entrance. She squawked and flailed at him like a small, colorful hen, demanding to know what he thought he was doing . . . didn’t he realize that Master Renkath was in their debt and wanted to—
Ahead of them the door opened, and Jenilyn, dragging a muzzy and uncomprehending Kenyon Treegirth, appeared. “Treegirth!” Alven shouted, beckoning to them. “Over here! I want you to—”
Behind the captain the door was hurled back on its hinges with a dull boom. The torches flickered in their sconces, and the wildly dancing shadows revealed—then hid—a tall, dark shape looming in the entranceway. A universal gasp rippled around the room, and Alven was aware, with part of his mind, that the revelers were melting away out the back door like snow beneath a hot sun. Before he could do more than blink, there were only a handful of people remaining.
Even Qazia, who was hardly a wilting bud of helplessness in the face of danger, dived behind the bar and stayed there.
The tall figure’s voice grated across the room as a long arm lifted in a dark sleeve to point. “Is that the one you saw plotting, bravo?”
Only then did Alven notice the grizzled, scarred face of the bodyguard who stood beside Thotharn’s high priest. “Aye, sir,” the bravo said. The tough old mercenary shivered visibly as the cowled head turned to look down into his eyes. “That be the one, sir. The little one, wearin’ the hood.”
Alven’s knees sagged as he realized, for the first time, that the high priest was pointing past him, to the small man in the back.
“The truth, maggot-spawn.” The grating voice was all the more sinister for its calm. “Speak.”
The small man writhed, tiny noises erupting from the back of his throat; then his struggles ceased abruptly, and he rose to front his accuser. “Aye,” he said tonelessly, “I paid an assassin to kill you. They said he never missed.”
“Which one?”
Alven felt his insides heave and prayed that he wouldn’t disgrace himself as the small man swung toward him, his finger jabbing the air like a bony blade. The youth barely managed to step away from his mother in time for the incriminating digit to indicate him alone.
“Die, then,” the high priest intoned, his hand closing around the golden image of his god.
With a squeal and a jerk like a lanced pig, the little priest tumbled over. They all stared in horror as the body began to melt, as though consumed by fire from within. A faint stench of decay reached Alven’s nostrils; then it was gone.
And so was the small priest.
“Is this the man you saw talking with him?” The high priest indicated Alven to the bravo.
“Aye, sir. He took the sack o’ coins.”
“Very well. Dispatch him. He will offer no resistance.”
Alven heard strangled cries from his mother, Master Renkath, Jeni, and Treegirth as they all struggled to move, patently helpless beneath some restraining spell Thotharn’s chosen had cast. The bravo drew his hand knife, grinning as though he truly loved his work, and walked toward Alven, who stood frozen, waiting for the immobility to strike him, also.
But it didn’t.
Struggling to comprehend the fact that he could still move, Alven lifted one hand to stare at it wonderingly; then, as the bravo came in with a low upward slash designed to disembowel an opponent, he leaped back, rolling away under the table.
As he did so, something hard poked his breastbone, and he remembered the Killstar that he’d thrust into his overjerkin pocket! Frantically he scuttled away as he dragged it out, still in its red napkin, careful even in his haste to keep from touching the green-starred points. Then it was free of the cloth, and in his hand. Alven rolled up to one knee, sighted, then sent it spinning across the tables.
It was a perfect cast. The bravo went down with a final, hideous gurgle as the Killstar buried itself in his throat.
There was a long, shocked silence as Alven and the high priest looked at each other across the ro
om. Then the tall man reached up to grasp Thotharn’s image. Alven tried to meet his end bravely, open-eyed, but his body wouldn’t obey his mind, and he cowered back, covering his hands with his eyes.
Twenty heartbeats later, he peeked through his fingers, to see the high priest, frowning with effort, make a magical pass through the air, chanting softly.
Nothing happened this time, either.
With a bellowing roar, the high priest thrust the gold image of Thotharn at the youth, his face darkening visibly with strain. As he concentrated his energies, Alven saw Master Renkath stir; then his mother dropped to the floor in a faint, and Jenilyn blinked.
Alven crouched on the greasy floorboards of the tavern, waiting—and waiting . . .
And waiting . . .
Until Jenilyn, with a darting motion like that of a stooping gyrfalcon, grabbed one of the massive pewter ale tankards off the bar and brought it down on top of the high priest’s head with a thunk. Ale sheeted down the tall man’s face as he staggered, blinking; then the tankard connected with the top of his skull again, and he fell, to lie unmoving on the sodden floor.
The next few minutes were chaotic. A sobered Kenyon Treegirth bellowed to the nearest fair-ward to fetch the most powerful wizard in the temple’s employ and the magistrate on duty. Thotharn’s chosen, stumbling between his guards, his hands bound behind him with a blessed vine, was taken away. For practicing dark magic within full sight of witnesses, he faced having to drink Lethe-water, which would deprive him of the memory of how to use his powers, as well as permanent exile from Ithkar Fair and its environs.
“Alven, lad!” Master Renkath clapped the youth on the shoulder with a vigor that made the slighter man wince. “You saved me again! You and this quick-witted young lady! I can never repay you!”
Hastily, Alven introduced the gem merchant to Jenilyn as he helped his mother sit up. “Alven?” She patted his face as though not believing he was really there. “Are you all right, son?”
“Fine, Ma.”
“But, Alven . . .” Jenilyn’s dark eyes were puzzled as they all sat down at one of the tables Qazia was busily righting. “How were you able to move, when we couldn’t? And why didn’t you melt away, like the little man?”
“I don’t know.” Alven shrugged.
“Let me try something, son.” His mother’s gaze sharpened, then she touched his face and began muttering under her breath. They all waited for long moments, then she took her hand away. “By the Three, I would never have believed it! Magic has no effect on him! He’s immune to spells!”
“I am?” Alven was stunned. He’d never heard of such a thing. Finally, as the idea penetrated, he began to chuckle weakly, finally giggling like a fool. “And to think,” he gasped, “all these years I’ve worried about being turned into a water roach, or a newt! Who would ever have thought it!”
As the tears ran down his cheeks, his mother, too, began to laugh.
When they could talk coherently once more, sitting over a mug of Qazia’s best, Master Renkath grasped the youth’s arm with his big, beringed hand. “Alven, you’re obviously a lad with many talents,” he began.
“Do you know how useful somebody like you could be to me? Not only as a bodyguard, but to learn the gem merchant’s trade? One of the constant problems I have in my business is guarding against jewels that have been enhanced by magic to appear a better quality than they are. You would be unaffected by such spells. Would you consider traveling with me as my bodyguard and apprentice?”
Alven gaped at the black-bearded man, then hastily closed his mouth and sat up a little straighter. “To see the world outside Ithkar’s gates has been my fondest wish. I will travel with you, and gladly.”
“Alven!” his mother protested. “I need you here! You can’t just go off and—”
“Yes, I can,” the youth said calmly. “And I’m going, Mother. But only if Master Renkath will advance me half my first year’s wages before we leave.”
“Done!” the merchant said, opening his purse.
“With this”—Alven spilled the coins out onto the table—“and this”—he dug the dead priest’s gold out of his jerkin—“you won’t have to labor in that laundry from dawn to torch lighting each day, Mother. Before I leave, I’ll see you set up in a snug little cottage in the country, with a cat to keep you company and some hens to scratch beside your doorstep. I’ll be back every year for Ithkar Fair, and I’ll bring you half what I earn. You’ll never have to scrub another piece of underlinen again—except your own.”
“But—”
“I’m going, Mother,” he repeated, and after a second she sighed, resigned, then went home to pack.
“It’s settled, then,” said the gem merchant, rising to his feet. “And now, since it’s nearly dawn, I’m heading for the guest house and a long-delayed sleep.”
“It’s nearly time for me to report to work,” Alven said, then, realizing, grinned. “I don’t have to go,” he said. “Treegirth will have to find someone else to check weapons from now on.”
“Speaking of our noble captain”—Jenilyn grimaced—“he forgot to pay me.”
“Well, since you were the one who actually felled the high priest, we can’t have you go unrewarded, either, my dear,” Master Renkath said, twisting the gemmed ring off his little finger and handing it to her with a courtly bow. “I admire a quick-witted woman. Have you ever considered traveling beyond Ithkar’s bounds?”
Jenilyn smiled, sliding the ring (it was still too large) onto her thumb. “I don’t know,” she said, eying the gem merchant measuringly and evidently liking what she saw, for she smiled again. “I never thought about it.”
“Think, my dear,” said the merchant, offering her his arm with another bow. “You’d look lovely in gold, you know.”
The former weapons clerk of Ithkar Fair stood outside the Joyous Goblet, watching them walk away together in the pale pink light of dawn, thinking with a smile of mountains and rivers and deserts . . . all the places he’d never seen, that now lay ahead of him. . . .
Just as Jenilyn and Master Renkath turned the corner out of sight, she glanced back at Alven, and one dark eye closed in an unmistakable wink.
Guardians of the Secret
Ginger Curry and Monika Conroy
The toadish face of the wizard-of-the-gate squirmed as his weary eyes followed the path of the bloody sunrise, inching its way up, shoving away another tired night. Waning to light, the night crept back to its primordial hideout. The freshly scrubbed peaks looming over the fair city of Ithkar, damp from a recent rain, gaped their frozen greeting to the first rays of day.
The gnomed figure of the wizard slouched against the gate as he observed the spectacle of a new day at the fair. His eyes rested momentarily on the license fee officer and the squad of fair-wards. Pink from lack of sleep, his heavy lids kept sinking down over eyes that could not stop seeing. Flashes of fragmented pictures formed, jarring him once again into opening his eyes. To what body did the aged female face he saw each night in his dreams belong? And why the feeling of uneasiness associated with her? He knew that soon she would answer his questions, for she was headed for Ithkar.
As the sun gained in strength, its warmth cleared the wizard’s mind, chasing the remnants of his nightmares into the abyss of the darkness.
He nodded off for a moment. When next he awoke, a scabrous yellow cart, drawn by a brown horse who was already crunching tufts of grass from the ground between bit and teeth, was stopped before the gate to Ithkar. The wizard’s glance shifted from the horse to the woman making the familiar transaction. After placing a few copper coins on the officer’s palm, the woman seated on the wagon took the paper assigning her place in the compound and stuck it into a pocket.
Eyes that had been disinterested suddenly focused. The wrinkled old woman was dressed unfashionably in a leather jerkin and cotton skirt. Sturdy wooden clogs completed her outfit. Ancient, almost forgotten pictures fell into place. Lisandra the perfumer! Of course! The last
time he’d seen her was nearly a century ago—he’d been a child. Something had happened to her in Ithkar. Something that was whispered about but never spoken aloud. When she had left the fair, her beauty was dulling. Eyes known for their luminescence were now dark—because she was blind. It was rumored that she had been chosen to become the guardian of the secret.
The wizard motioned Lisandra closer, and she nudged the horse, which immediately pranced over to the wizard. The woman absentmindedly stroked the animal behind its ear. What had seemed to be a worn-out work horse was, up close, a shaggy but otherwise thoroughbred racehorse. The wizard stored the anomaly away on a special shelf in his mind as he greeted the woman.
“Lisandra! You came back!” He leaned closer to see if she was still blind. His gaze encountered blue untroubled eyes that could not focus.
“Yes, I am back.”
Her voice had a husky, pleasant timbre to it.
“Why?”
The old woman answered simply, “The time has come.”
Feeling uneasy without knowing why, the wizard stalled. “But you’re rather late, aren’t you? Only three fair days remain.”
“I have traveled along many roads, and I was not certain that this was my destination until I arrived.”
Puzzling over her meaning, the wizard became more wary. But the old woman had done nothing wrong—yet. She had not used her magic scents to deceive. As to what she was planning . . . Her aura was much too strong for him to penetrate—alone. Still, as he watched the perfumer and her cart disappear into the crowds, he became anxious enough to search back through aged images for a clue as to why Lisandra had returned to the fair. Coming up with nothing, he wondered if it was possible that she had come merely to sell her perfume. He shook his head. The air about him vibrated strangely, like the gathering of storm clouds before the fury of the wind breaks loose. But he could not attribute its source to Lisandra. He decided to let it simmer for a while. Shrugging, he settled back against the gate to slumber until another fairgoer arrived.