by Glenda Larke
‘Me?’ Arrant’s heart lurched sickly inside him. ‘I don’t wanna go!’
She smiled at him. ‘Yes, you do. You know you want to meet your father. You told me so. And he wants to see you, so very, very much.’
He felt cold in spite of the warm water. She had blocked her feelings from him—or at least he thought she had; he could sense nothing—but he knew that tone of voice. It meant there was to be no argument. When she sounded like that, wheedling had about as much effect as raising a hand against the wind. ‘Will—will you come too?’
‘Yes, for a little while…Ouch! Narjemah, don’t worry about it. It will heal. You know a scratch like this won’t bother a Magoria.’
Narjemah clucked fussily. ‘You don’t take half enough care of yourself.’
‘I don’t have time. Ah, here’s Gevenan.’
The Ingean ignored Ligea and Narjemah and came over to Arrant. ‘How’s the young man?’ he asked. ‘Washed behind your ears?’
‘Yep.’
He stuck his hand in the water, decided it was too cold and lifted Arrant out of the bath, wrapping him in a bath towel. ‘Got more sense than your mother, eh? You wouldn’t be so silly as to get yourself grazed by a rip-disc from a whirlsling, would you?’
Arrant giggled and shook his head.
Ligea was impatient with them. ‘Gevenan, I want Prianus abandoned. The Brotherhood was too close today for easy sleep here. Double the sentries along the trail and get everyone up to the Stronghold as soon as you can. Don’t listen to any excuses—insist.’
‘You think this wasn’t just a random search?’
‘I’m sure of it. They were surprised at being ambushed, of course, but they were looking for us. For me.’
‘For you, meaning Ligea?’
‘No, me, the numen bitch. I questioned the survivor. Besides, they were all carrying whirlslings.’
He grunted. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions. And you the one with the fancy schooling in logic! It’s possible every legion is under orders to increase the number of whirlslings just in case they meet you. After all, Rathrox and Bator Korbus both know enough to be aware the best way to bring down one of the Magor is from a distance.’
She thought that over. ‘You could be right. Still, I want Prianus abandoned. If they do find the Stronghold, well, we can defend that or escape through the back trails. And, Gev, as soon as this shoulder is mended, I’m off to Kardiastan for a couple of months. I’m taking Arrant to his father and I want to coordinate the rebellions for next desert-season.’
Gevenan accepted that, unperturbed. ‘A wise decision.’ He smiled at Arrant. ‘But I’ll miss the brat, for all that.’ And he went to ruffle his hair.
Arrant ducked.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Arrant sat up on the seat next to Mole, who was driving the farm cart. It was all he could do to sit still. This was the longest trip he had ever taken away from the Stronghold, and the best. Mole let him take the reins sometimes, and showed him how to tell the horses what to do. And there were lots of interesting things to see along the paveway.
The paveway itself, for a start. The stones were so neat, all laid out in rows. Of course, they weren’t allowed to use the paved part. That was for important people. They used the dirt road alongside, but Ligea said that was better for the horses anyway. The mounted legionnaires who rode on the paving tied a funny sort of leather bag with iron at the bottom on to their horses’ feet. Mole said it was so the hooves didn’t wear down on the stones.
He had to pretend Mole was his uncle and Narjemah was their slave. She complained about having to wear a slave collar. Mole was driving them only as far as Getria and he told everyone he was a farmer, taking his widowed sister to Getria to marry a distant cousin. The idea of his mother getting married made Arrant giggle. She kept her hair covered, as a modest widow might, and that was funny too. Her wound, aided by her Magor healing, didn’t bother her any more, which was just as well because the cart was bumpy.
They paid the road tax at the wayhouses and stayed in roadside tabernas, even though Narjemah grumbled about the bedbugs. The taberna owners and the wayhouse people were all supposed to check if travellers had cabochons in their palms, but mostly they forgot. As Ligea said, when you looked at hundreds and hundreds of hands month after month, year after year and no one ever had a cabochon, you must wonder why you had to bother.
They’d only been asked twice. The first time Mole showed his own hand and then pretended he was so insulted anyone would suggest his family were numina that the man at the wayhouse had apologised. The second time, when a taberna owner insisted on seeing Ligea’s hand, the man had suddenly got a terrible pain in his head. He’d gone to bed after that and forgotten all about it.
Arrant had rarely enjoyed himself more. His two favourite people suddenly had all the time in the world to attend to him. Narjemah told him stories about the Magor and Kardiastan. Ligea told him about the Mirage and his father, and when she ran out of things to say, she told tales of the gods of Elysium. They played games to while away the hours spent in the cart. A pleasant stream was an excuse not just to water the horses, but to have a swim.
The only blotches on his enjoyment were the times when Ligea insisted he practise his magic. He tried—oh, how he tried!—but somehow things rarely happened the way they should.
‘Looks like a taberna up there, Domina,’ Mole remarked.‘Want to stop for the night? We can get from here to Getria by tomorrow evening.’
‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Arrant, check your bandage.’
He looked down to make sure the lump on his palm was properly covered. ‘It’s fine. Look, Mater, those children have a kitten. Can I go and have a look?’
‘As soon as we stop. Remember to try to sense their feelings when you play with them.’
He nodded, but when he went to join the three children, their emotions remained as blank to him as a cloudless sky. They seemed friendly, though, and let him pat the kitten. When Ligea called him back to her side, she’d already paid for their night’s lodging and food and Mole was asking if the taberna-keeper wanted to look at their palms.
The man laughed. ‘If ever I did find a numen, I reckon they’d kill me right then and there. Tell you the truth? I’d rather not look in the first place. Your room is at the top of the stairs on the left. Two cots and two pallets. I’ll send the food up when it’s ready.’
‘So,’ Ligea asked a little later, when Arrant was hanging out of the window watching Mole unhitch the cart, ‘did your cabochon work?’
He shook his head and didn’t look at her.
She sighed. ‘Look at that hilltop over there, Arrant. Enhance your sight and tell me what you see.’
He brought his hand up to his face and strained to bring the glow into the gem, but it nestled under the skin of his palm as quiet and as useful as a lump of river gravel.
‘No luck?’ she asked. ‘Never mind.’
But he did mind. He minded horribly because he knew his lack upset her. He saw fear in her eyes.
He was so stupid. At times, usually when he wasn’t concentrating at all, he would be hit by someone’s anger, or another’s joy. And he wouldn’t know whose. Sometimes, when they were in a crowd of people, he would be overwhelmed by all he felt. He’d start shaking, eyes popping wide with panic. Ligea and Narjemah both tried to teach him how to block out such unwanted feelings, in vain. He had no control.
His mother never growled at him, but then she didn’t have to; the way her brow creased with worry when he failed was enough to chide him more deeply than words could have done. He laboured to please her, but it didn’t seem to help. Worse, he knew his lack somehow frightened her.
That night, as he snuggled drowsily on his pallet and Mole was downstairs checking on the horses, he heard Ligea and Narjemah whispering about it.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Ligea said. ‘Narjemah, you said you could do more at this age than he can. You said all Magor children can. And he is not ju
st Magor, he is Magoroth! He is supposed to be better than most, not worse.’
‘He’s a child still.’
‘He’s the Mirager-heir!’
‘Let him have his childhood.’
‘It’s all my fault and I don’t know how to make it right. Please the gods, Temellin will know what to do.’
Arrant shrank into a ball under the covers. His mother blamed herself. But it was his fault. He knew that. There was something wrong with him. And he had made his mother unhappy. Maybe that was why she wanted him to go live in Kardiastan, away from her. Probably he’d make his father unhappy too… Why would Temellin be interested in a son who couldn’t do magic? A lump formed in the back of his throat, as horrid as the way he felt.
He tried to shut out all those thoughts, but they wouldn’t go away. Sensing his distress and thinking he was having a nightmare, his mother laid a hand on his head. He feigned sleep and finally did drop off, tears drying on his cheeks.
And dreamed. A tentacle slid across his skin, rubbing it raw and leaving behind a slime trail that burned like fire. It belonged to a beast with teeth like lance blades, all shiny and sharp. The creature grinned at him, and dropped saliva that sizzled through his clothes to his skin. Then it whispered in his ear: ‘You are mine, Arrant weakling-child. And one day I will tear you to pieces. I will eat each piece while you watch. Your tongue first.’ And the beast inserted a clawed finger into his mouth, curling the claw around his tongue to get a grip so it could rip—
Arrant woke, screaming. He sat bolt upright, bathed in sweat. It was the worst dream he’d ever had. And so real. That creature—it was as clear to him as the cat he had patted earlier that evening. But this had slavering jaws, made slurping sounds, seeped a thick stench of nastiness…He shuddered and twisted his hands tight into the pallet cover.
A dream. It was just a dream. And dreams weren’t real.
Why then could he still smell it?
Ligea came in, breathing hard. ‘Mirageless soul, Arrant—what’s the matter? I felt you all the way downstairs!’
‘A—a bad dream,’ he said.
She took him in her arms, and calmed his shuddering. ‘Mirageless soul, you are in a state. Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter, son. It wasn’t real.’
But he knew it was, somewhere. Just not here.
‘Look, lad, that’s Getria.’ Mole pointed with his horsewhip as they topped a rise. Arrant, sitting next to him, had a good view. ‘See the walls? And the tall buildings on the hills—those are the temples to Medeana, Goddess of Love and Children, wife of Ocrastes, God of War.’
‘Getria is not as beautiful as Tyr,’ Ligea added, looking over his shoulder, ‘and it’s not as large either.’ Still, Arrant had trouble shutting his mouth. It looked huge to him, and became bigger by the minute as they approached.
Closer to the walls, Mole stopped the cart and pretended to be fiddling with one of the wheels while Ligea enhanced her sight and hearing to see how the guards dealt with those entering the gates.
‘Not too bad,’ she said after a while. ‘They only ask to see the palms of people with darker skins. Arrant and Narjemah and I will sit in the back of the cart. You tell them the usual story, Mole. If that doesn’t get us through, I’ll create a diversion.’ She grinned at Arrant and he sensed her excitement. She was enjoying herself. ‘Remember that, Arrant. If you don’t want people to see something, give them something more exciting to look at.’
As Mole started the horses moving once more, she said, ‘There’s a cart with wine jars in the gateway. The owner is arguing over the duties due at the gate. Spilt wine would be much more interesting than you or me.’ She gave him a blanket. ‘Here, wrap yourself up in this. Cover as much of your skin as you can.’ She and Narjemah used their shawls.
Mole started grizzling as soon as the guard at the gate came to ask who he was. ‘Rollus,’ he said, ‘carpenter. Been to Begum to pick up my fool sister here and her slave and my nevvy. Told her she should never have married that useless farmer. Worked her half to death out in the fields, he did, and now got himself killed by a goat. Gored to death by a bloody goat, can you believe it? And what the hells am I to do with a woman and another brat? Me own wife has Acheron’s sulphur on her tongue as it is…’
At this point, the guard gave up and waved them through. Arrant was disappointed. He would rather have seen the spilt wine.
‘We will stay with Sestius tonight,’ Ligea told him as they proceeded into the city. ‘He’s one of Moneymaster Arcadim’s sons. I have business to discuss. Mole, you had better ask for directions.’
Arrant had never been inside such a splendid building as the Sestius villa. Best of all, as far as he was concerned, were the mosaics on the floor. You could walk from room to room reading the story they told underfoot, all about the gods and goddesses and immortals and the heroes of old…all the stories Ligea had told him. There were even pictures of strange animals from the south of Altan—dogs with funny snouts as long as your arm, people riding beasts even bigger than gorclaks.
As a child, he was welcomed in both the women’s and the men’s quarters—spoiled and cuddled and stuffed with sweetmeats in the former, subtly questioned in the latter. Arrant, however, was already an expert at never giving anything away, and the moneymaster had ended by ruffling his hair and laughing, telling him he was a clever lad indeed.
Sestius made Arrant giggle. Instead of hair, he had a blue eye painted on his shiny bald head. And he had a beard that grew down to his waist. He’d made it pretty, too, with strings of pearls. Arrant wanted to touch them, but Ligea had said he mustn’t do that. No one was allowed to touch a moneymaster’s pearls because they represented his ancestors.
Sestius showed Arrant the library of the house, and told him he must learn to read and figure. ‘For if you don’t,’ the moneymaster said, ‘you will be only half a man. Remember that, lad: to ride and fight and swim and wrestle—that’s only half of life.’
Arrant discovered he loved the smell of the library: the scent of fresh papyrus, the lingering hint of the glue they used in the bindings of the ledgers, the interesting smell of new wax on the tablets, the edgy tang of mustiness in the dark corners. He loved the look of it: the scrolls bound with ribbon, the piled-up tablets, the marble lecterns, the row upon row of ledgers.
‘I’ll remember,’ he promised, and meant it.
After Getria, Mole returned to the Stronghold, while Arrant, Ligea and Narjemah joined a moneymasters’ caravan transporting documents and gold to a town called Bryssa. There they transferred to a barge belonging to the Moneymasters’ Guild of Tyr, on one of the smaller tributaries of the River Tyr.
The three of them dressed as Assorians. Arrant wore a robe, not a tunic. It flapped around his ankles and he complained he felt like a girl. He complained, too, that Narjemah and Ligea didn’t look right, covered up like that. Assorian women, Ligea explained, were not allowed to show their arms or shoulders or hair to any man who wasn’t a part of their family. Even odder, they were not allowed to look at men, or have men look at them, unless they were family. The Assorian bargemen not only wouldn’t glance at them, but refused to speak to them unless absolutely necessary.
‘I shall look at you,’ Arrant told Narjemah stoutly on their first day on the barge, ‘whenever I like. And you can look at me, too.’
‘Don’t complain,’ Ligea said.‘Assorian customs are to our advantage. I believe no one will ask to see our palms, because they wouldn’t want to anger an Assorian moneymaster by insulting his womenfolk. As for you, Arrant, every time a legionnaire comes close, you will have to hide in among the bales of cargo. It doesn’t matter if they see you; I just don’t want anyone to get a good look at you. Do you think you can do that?’
As they had an armed legionnaire escort, he often had to scuttle off into one of the half-a-dozen hiding places he found on board. That part was fun. Most of the time, though, the trip was boring. During the day, they sat on cushions in the shade of canvas covers as the b
arge was pulled along the towpath by a team of rented slaves. They stopped at wayhouses for meals and to change the pullers. At night, they slept on board while the barge was tied up to the bank.
Once they entered the River Tyr, the journey was more interesting. When they sighted the city in the distance, Arrant forgot all about Getria; Tyr was so much better and bigger and more fascinating. He gazed up in awe at a giant stone bridge leaping its way across the land in huge arches. It curved to cross the valley and was then swallowed up by the city walls. ‘What’s that for?’ he asked. ‘Why would anyone want a road built up so high?’
‘It’s not a road. It’s an aqueduct,’ Ligea explained. ‘It brings water to Tyr from the hills.’
‘But there’s lots of water in the river and that goes into the city. You said so.’
‘It does, as you’ll see in a minute. But the water is not clean. Especially in the desert-season. Look at it, Arrant. Would you like to drink water that colour? Dirty water makes you sick. The water in the aqueduct is as clear as the day it bubbled up out of the ground.’
‘Oh.’ He stared and stared. He’d never seen anything as lovely as the curves of those arcaded arches eating up the miles. ‘It looks like a road,’ he said. ‘A road on a bridge. How long is it? Must be miles ’n’ miles ’n’ miles!’
‘This particular one is about a hundred and fifty miles long.’
‘How far’s that?’
‘Well, it would take you ten days to walk it. And is there ever any end to your questions?’
‘Do they have them in Kardiastan?’
‘No, but they ought to.’
‘Then I shall build some when I’m big.’
A little further on they were halted to have their cargo checked and taxed. Ligea and Narjemah sat together, holding their gauzy shawls across their faces, their heads modestly lowered. Arrant had to pretend to be asleep, with a sheet pulled over him. No one asked to see their palms.