by Jags, Chris
“Wind without wind,” Niu said sardonically. “Curious.”
“An animal, then.” If Niu was going to be dismissive of the Gods, he was going to be dismissive of her concerns.
“Possibly.” The handmaiden didn’t look convinced. She rose, crossed to a section of wall and put her eye to a crack in the planking. After a moment, she returned, frowning. “Whatever it was, I think it has gone now.”
If it was ever there in the first place, Simon thought huffily.
For a time, semi-silence shrouded the barn. Simon lay down on his blanket and listened irritably to the maddening rustle and squeak of small rodents scurrying about in the long grass. He longed to stomp on all of them. His father was petrified of mice, and despite his attempts to conceal his phobia, Simon had known from a young age. Veter’s irrational fears manifested as cringing reluctance every time he was forced to deal with the little creatures. Thinking of his father made him almost physically sick, and he rolled away from Niu so she wouldn’t see his weakness.
Although he’d lost his prayer stone, he nonetheless murmured a plea to Vanyon, begging the god to preserve his father from danger and to forgive Niu her blasphemies. It upset him that if she persisted in her heresy, the Jynn handmaiden would be denied access to the Afterworld. Could he change her mind? He thought it might offend her if he tried, but wasn’t preserving her eternal soul worth risking her rancor?
If someone or something was patrolling the barn it didn’t bother them during the night. Neither Simon nor Niu slept well. Niu remained jumpy and alert until dawn, dozing only infrequently, a kitchen knife close at hand. Simon dreamed of returning to the uncomplicated life he’d so strongly desired to escape. Why had he been so dissatisfied? He could barely remember now.
Morning found them weary and ill-tempered. They spoke little. There was nothing left to eat, but thankfully a sluggish old stream bisecting the forgotten field provided water. Somewhat refreshed, Simon was impatient to get moving. Only Vanyon’s Parade and a valley stood between himself and home.
Of course, that was a big only, with the King’s men looking for him.
Niu found some disturbing tracks in the soft soil near the stream – fresh and man-sized. Simon was forced to admit that someone had, more than likely, been prowling around the barn in the night. When Niu drew his attention to them, he grunted ungraciously.
“Just a villager, probably,” he said. “A farmer, or a tramp. A hunter, maybe.” But in his heart, he shared her suspicion that someone was keeping an eye on them.
A half-hour’s walk through long-uncultivated land brought them to the crest of a hill, allowing them a view of Vanyon’s Parade. A ring of tidy dwellings surrounded a large market square, the town’s primary attraction, at the center of which rose an ancient, badly weathered statue of its towering namesake. As the main trading hub between northern and southern Cannevish, inns and warehouses sprouted up in greater proliferation than homes, and likewise travelers and merchants outnumbered locals. Twin wooden guard towers, gated, sealed the entrance to both the town and the valley beyond. He and Niu would either have to brave the checkpoint or hike into the mountains to circumvent the town, which would add days to their travel time.
“The best choice,” Niu decided, “Would be to travel with – or at least appear to be traveling with – a group of people. The guards are looking for a man and a woman.”
This seemed like a shaky plan to Simon, relying on a certain degree of stupidity and carelessness on the part of the soldiers, but he couldn’t think of another way that wasn’t prohibitively time consuming.
“Where are we supposed to find a group who won’t just turn us over to the guards?” he asked.
She reached beneath her cloak and produced a small drawstring bag. It clinked as she tossed it in the air and caught it.
“Where did you get that?”
She smiled slightly. “Clothes and food are not the only the only things I have been borrowing.”
Simon thought it over.
“Well,” he said at length, “It’s true, we could probably bribe our way into a merchant caravan or something. But what’s to stop whoever we pay taking our money and then turning us over to the guards? There’s bound to be a bounty on our heads.”
“Not necessarily,” Niu said. “The royals desire to - what is your saying? - sweep their mess under the rug. They may be leaving the matter in the hands of local authorities rather than alerting the people.”
“Can we take that chance?”
“We need not.” The handmaiden gestured meaningfully toward the flanking mountains.
“You need not,” Simon emphasized meaningfully. He’d been thinking about Niu and all she’d done to help him, despite the trouble he’d brought upon her head. “Find someplace safe and stay there. It’s likely I’m going to my…” He hesitated, unable to bring himself to say death. “Capture. There’s no need for you to get captured too. Let’s agree on somewhere I can meet you in a few days if I…” Survive. “Don’t get myself caught.”
Niu smiled again. For the first time, it almost seemed genuine.
“Stupid,” she said. “You would not survive without me.”
Simon was mildly put out that she considered him so hopeless. “I fought a dragon and survived.”
“Mm-hmm. I will come with you.”
“You don’t blend in. You’ll be spotted immediately.”
“We shall see.” Without further discussion, she tugged her hood down, Niu set off downhill toward the small but bustling hub. Simon hurried to keep up with her.
“Do you really think we’ll get through the checkpoint?”
“Only one way to find out.” She quickened her pace. “Remember. Appear confident.”
“Confident,” Simon repeated with as much self-assurance as he could manage.
He hoped Niu would change her mind and choose a route which secreted them into town under the cover of the surrounding foliage, but she took the road. She kept her hood low but not too low, and moved with poise and composure. He strove to match her, but felt conspicuous and oafish trailing in her wake. Eventually, after weaving around a succession of slow-moving ox carts, the two of them found themselves surrounded by foot traffic. Niu elected to press close to a scruffy band of actors and minstrels who looked nearly as worn and travel-weary as Simon felt. She slowed her pace to match theirs, and if they noticed, none of them concerned themselves with her motives.
“Niu,” Simon said nervously, trying not to catch the eye of merchants and travelers intermittently spilling from the city gates in the opposite direction. A bubble of anxiety swelling in his gut, he continually expected a startled exclamation of recognition, a cry for the guards, but it never came. Few people even gave them a second glance. “I really don’t think we can get through.”
He gestured, as inconspicuously as he could, toward the town gate. It wasn’t nearly as heavily guarded as the valley mouth, where the watchtowers stood, but there were still several of soldiers on duty. In most instances, they lazily waved travelers past, although occasionally they stopped some random unfortunates and drew them aside for questioning. This interchange generally ended, Simon noted, with coins changing hands and their victim continuing on just a bit lighter.
“If we turned around now, we would attract attention to ourselves. Remember… confidence,” Niu reminded him. “But not arrogance. Behave in a carefree manner, if you can, as though this is a journey you have made many times and you expect no trouble.”
“Well… I have been here before.” And only scant days ago, at that, he thought, on his way to the base camp where he would meet up with his fellow aspiring dragonslayers. The town had appeared friendlier, more welcoming then. Less like a trap. He made an attempt to recapture his high spirits during that first journey, and while he wasn’t wholly successful, he was able to inject a little bounce into his step.
“Stick close to the group in front of us,” Niu hissed. “As close as you can without arousing their suspicion.”
As luck had it, just as Simon and Niu were approaching the gate – Simon’s heart in his mouth – one of the soldiers stopped a rotund bald man who was traveling alone. This fellow, clad in a ratty approximation of merchant’s robes, had a nervous aspect about him, a mincing step which had drew the guards’ eyes. They hauled the protesting man off to the side and began to interrogate him. The unfortunate fellow began to gesticulate wildly as he negotiated with the soldiers, two of whom were frowning forbiddingly, one of whom was grinning openly. The guards made him empty his pockets and rifled through an endless succession of hidden purses and drawstring bags concealed about his person. Simon didn’t know what the various herbs and powders that the soldiers kept emptying out onto the ground were, but their agitated owner was clearly terrified; sweating profusely, he repeatedly proclaimed himself a “legitimate” businessman, and made repeated mention of his family, who were supposedly relying on his continued good health.
Whatever his story, the rotund man’s plight was the distraction Simon and Niu needed. The troupe of entertainers was waved through the gate with only the most cursory of glances, Simon and Niu with them. Behind them, the quaking detainee had been thrown over a barrel and cuffed. Simon heard one of the guards laughingly taunt that it was ‘the rope’ for him ‘for sure’.
That could easily have been me, he thought, a little ill.
“See?” Niu asked when they were safely inside. “That was not so hard.”
“The guards were distracted,” Simon muttered.
“Much of life is luck.”
“No.” Simon shielded his eyes against the bright morning sun and pointed toward the distant market square. The weatherworn statue of great Vanyon, rising above the sea of canvas, seemed to be looking directly down upon him. “We had Vanyon’s protection.”
Niu raised an eyebrow. “Sad, then, that he did not think to protect the man before us.”
“I think that man was a smuggler.”
“And we are fugitives; we have stolen and possibly killed.”
Simon shuddered, thinking of the women they’d trapped with the wendigo.
“He’s guarding us,” he said stiffly. “Tonight I will thank him with prayer and offerings.”
“What kind of offerings?”
“Wine.” Simon’s father had once told him that, centuries ago, wine had replaced blood as Vanyon’s preferred offering. Prior to that, the god had only accepted sacrifice. The change had occurred during the reign of King Ferrath, considered by historians and commoners alike to have been Cannevish’s wisest, most progressive ruler. Certainly, he’d been much more sympathetic to the troubles of his people than anyone in the House of Minus, who had obliterated his family line and retained their stranglehold upon the throne for nearly two hundred years. No one even knew what Ferrath looked like anymore, so thoroughly had Princess Tiera’s ancestors wiped him from recorded history.
“Can he not make his own? And how do you get this wine to him?” Niu inquired, faux-innocently, interrupting Simon’s train of thought.
“You pour it onto…” Simon began, then shook his head angrily. He wasn’t going to engage Niu on the topic of his religion again. He wanted nothing to do with her subversive Jynn beliefs. “What’s our next move?”
“An inn, perhaps. We may find a merchant traveling north whose pockets we can fill.” She glanced around at the buildings, which curved like protective wings about the nucleus of the central market. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Well, there’s… on my first visit, I stayed at an inn called The Charging Boar.”
“We cannot go there then, as they would certainly recognize you.”
“Of… course.” Simon cursed himself for not thinking of that.
“I will find some place.”
She led Simon down the right wing of the town. The market was bustling with people, and while Simon saw each and every one of them as a potential threat, few of them showed interest in return. Those who did consider him momentarily were merchants, speculating on how much coin he might be worth then passing him over as a penniless vagrant. Consequently, none of the various vendors attempted to hawk their wares to him. Simon grew increasingly bitter with each dismissal: he knew he looked a bit rough, unshaven and unkempt as he was, but his pride nagged at him regardless. He was nothing in the eyes of these traders; neither a dragonslayer nor a wanted man, just some flotsam drifting through the town, unworthy of their attention. Now that he was an outlaw, was that all he would ever be?
If the town ringed the marketplace, then the stalls worshipped at Vanyon’s enormous stone feet. The god stood tall and stern, surveying the town with flaking eyes. The wings on his great helm, now worn to stubs, had once speared the sky. A vast beard spilled down the statue’s scarred chest, obscuring the One Wound, which the God had received in vanquishing the demon Phthalam. At the base of the great monument, some men were erecting a wooden platform. Simon wondered what might be about to take place – theater, perhaps, or feats of strength, sword-swallowing and magic. Whichever the case, Simon wished he could join the onlookers, carefree.
Niu tugged at his arm, drawing his attention to a message board which was plastered with notices, alongside familiarly-formatted Wanted posters. At first, he was afraid that she wanted him to read the notices, and he was reluctant to draw her attention to his embarrassing inability. Following a quick perusal, however, he took her meaning: neither of their faces stared back at them. Her earlier speculation that only the king’s men had been forwarded a description of the fugitives was likely true, then. Thereafter, Simon felt slightly more at ease in the crowd.
Weaving through waves of hawkers and pedestrians, the two of them struggled around the perimeter of the marketplace. At times, the gauntlet of bodies, carts, stalls, and pack animals was suffocatingly dense. Simon narrowly avoided a blow which might have shattered his knee as an ornery mule, protesting at its master’s persistent nagging, lashed out at the world at large. While the guard presence was largely centered near the construction of the platform, he and Niu were occasionally forced to inconspicuously redirect their steps to avoid patrols.
Here and there, Niu paused to make discreet inquiries of merchants and craftsmen. None of them seemed inclined to offer their services or advice; sensing legal entanglement, even Niu’s coin did not persuade them. One scowling weaponsmith even threatened to turn them over to the guard. Eventually, a disreputable looking jeweler pointed them toward an inn which went by the moniker The Nameless Nymph.
“A fellow there occasionally runs folk in trouble out o’ town,” he said. “Name o’ Jock.”
“What price does this Jock ask?” Niu wondered.
“Can’t say. Bunch o’ cutthroats runnin’ that joint, though,” he warned, flashing gold teeth. “Keep yer mouths shut an’ yer hands on yer purses.”
During Simon’s recent visit to Vanyon’s Parade, the town had been considerably less active. An air of jubilance radiated throughout the great square now, despite Vanyon’s severe stone glare. Merry laughter rang out across the cobbles. Puppet shows and jugglers amused the children while adults gathered to discuss current events, trade amongst one another, or lob rotten projectiles at a pair of unfortunate women who were locked into a pillory outside the three-story Nameless Nymph. The merriment might have been infectious, once. Simon wondered if they’d heard, or at least suspected, that the curse of the dragon had been lifted.
Looking grim, Niu approached the battered door of the ‘Nymph. She clearly anticipated trouble. Even without the jeweler’s warning, Simon would have had serious misgivings about trusting his fate to anyone who might base their operation out of such a dump. The inn was run-down and seedy. Dead vines failed to conceal rotten boards and flaking paint. Several windows were boarded up, which hardly inspired confidence. The cobbles leading to the door were stained with what was either blood or red wine, and Simon had to tread carefully to avoid broken glass. As the jeweler had suggested, this was the type of establishment where one might
find thieves, murderers and women of, as his father called them, ill-repute. Still, Simon had learned to trust Niu’s judgement, even if she often made him feel inadequate, so he made no protest as she ducked under a hanging sign depicting a crudely etched, bare-breasted mermaid and pushed her way into the inn.
The ‘Nymph was ill-lit and the atmosphere was toxic. Simon might have been able to stomach the sour mustiness, if not for the thick coils of smoke poisoning the air, causing him to splutter and cough. Niu shot him a warning look, and he was able to control his rebellious lungs, though not before every eye in the establishment had marked him as an outsider. Eyes tearing, he followed her as she led him across a creaking, sagging floor, between tables which tottered unsteadily on legs which had been splinted or substituted with replacement parts - in one case a stack of bricks.
The clientele worried Simon; perhaps not so much as they might have prior to the events of the last few days, but he knew it would pay to be wary. All manner of rogues seemed to populate the inn’s shadowy common room. Many were of Cannevish stock, but he saw more foreigners than he might have expected. A pair of huge, platinum-maned barbarians from the frozen Northlands squatted in one corner, eschewing chairs and tables to play some manner of game involving tossed bones on the floor; one of these barrel-chested titans was spattered with dried blood. Slumped in one dark corner, dead drunk, lay a snoring man who wore the demonic Eye of Phthalam on a chain around his neck in a shocking public display of blasphemy. A short, slight woman clad entirely in black sat alone, her broad-brimmed hat tilted down over a face which, he realized with a shock, was largely concealed behind a silver mask. He wasn’t sure where she might have originated; her attire suggested Lemmereq in the distant west. Wherever her homeland, the mere sight of her raised Simon’s hackles. Life, he had no doubt, was cheap within these walls. Maintaining an illusion of confidence was profoundly difficult in the face of the calculating stares and blatant hostility which he seemed to be absorbing from all directions.
A morose serving girl padded between the tables, enduring lewd propositions and groping hands with shadowed eyes and wilting lips. She barely seemed alive. Her eyelids hardly flickered when a jolly old fellow in a battered overcoat thwacked her backside with his cane, much to the amusement of his mates; nor did she react or respond to his indelicate suggestion that she service him with her mouth. She just kept walking, her expression less neutral than nonexistent. Simon pitied her. She seemed so colorless, so defeated by the world that the desire to help her in some way, an instinct he knew Niu would tell him was painfully naïve, bubbled up inside him.