by Tim Jones
"Look for the alder stump, she said," said Kendik.
Neither of them was big on botany, but there were not many stumps left along the river. The trees that once shielded it from the fields beyond had been cut down long ago, victims of Borzim's appetite for firewood. Most of the stumps had been dug up as well, creating little embayments as the loosened earth around them slumped into the river.
But some stumps remained, too big or too decayed to be worth moving. Working south, towards the place where the Opthia debouched from beneath the town walls, Kendik and Atlan checked beneath the bank at each stump. At the third stump, they found it: metal, just above the surface of the water.
"Time to get wet," said Kendik.
They stepped into the icy, clinging water, facing the bank. Kendik stifled a moan. When he was seven, his father had forced him to swim by throwing him in the local pond. That gave him a morbid hatred of cold water, though he knew this was no attitude for an adventurer.
"Where in the Name of all the Horrors is the catch?" said At-lan, feeling about in the water. "Can't you make that thing give any more light?"
"I'm worried enough as it is about being spotted by guards on the wall," said Kendik, though the wall was hidden from sight in the blackness. "Here, let me try." He handed Atlan the quartz and felt about beneath the water. Finally, he found the catch and forced it open.
"Stick the quartz on the bank," he told Atlan. "Now, you grab your side, I'll grab mine, and ... heave!"
The grill refused to move at first, but at last it gave, shrieking in protest, and rose slowly upwards.
"Don't pull it too far," said Kendik, "we don't want it to come out of its frame. Just a little further ... there."
The grill clicked into its open position.
"You go through," said Atlan, "and I'll follow. You're shivering."
Conditions weren't much better on the other side of the grill. Kendik stood, streaming with water and weed, water lapping at his waist, in a dark tunnel. Atlan joined him, holding the light quartz, which picked out sparkling mica highlights in the worn stone walls.
They dropped the grill back in place, then splashed through the water as the tunnel sloped gradually upwards.
"Lucky they never finished this sewer system," said Atlan. "How far did she say it was?"
"Fifty paces to the left after the junction."
As Kendik walked along, his head stooping lower with each step, he wondered whether he had made the right decision. He could have killed T'shifa, but he had chosen not to. Atlan had wanted to do it, and Kendik thought the older man would go ahead and kill her anyway, as a down payment on his vengeance for his brother; but Kendik had said no. Atlan gave Kendik a look—a long, unreadable look—then did as he was bidden. Kendik had looked back at her as they left the tent, lying still, tied up, drooling blood. Perhaps the anxious-faced man would find her and help her to a better place for dying. Kendik had not been able to bring himself to kill her, even to end her pain.
Twice Kendik and Atlan had to clamber over piles of rubble that had fallen in when the tunnel roof collapsed; in one of those places, they could hear the sound of something being dragged across a floor, coming faintly through the masonry that topped the hole.
"Someone's built themselves a new cellar," whispered Atlan.
At last they reached the T-junction and took the left-hand fork. Kendik started to count paces, making his strides a little smaller than usual. The new tunnel was narrower and lower than the first, and Kendik bent lower and lower.
"Only a windling could pace in here," complained Atlan, dropping to all fours to crouch.
"Forty-five ... forty-six ..."
He was almost past it before he saw it, a circle of metal in the tunnel wall. There was the recessed catch, just as T'shifa had said. So far, she had not put them wrong. Kendik forced his numb fingers to feel for the little nub of metal. He found it. It gave. The metal circle fell onto a pile of straw inside the room that suddenly opened to them. The light quartz revealed that the room was empty of friends and enemies alike. Kendik crawled through the hole, and Atlan after. They turned and, with frozen fingers, replaced the metal.
For good or ill, they were back in Borzim.
Chapter 8
Kendik awoke with the snorting of the bull still sounding in his ears. He looked around him in alarm, trying to get some anchor on reality. This bare room, gray in the light of early morning—where was he?
Someone was snoring, diagonally across from him. He saw a head poking out from a heap of straw. Atlan, that was Atlan, and he was in a house ... the basement of a house ... in Borzim.
It had been the full dream this time, right up to the stabbing pain in his right leg as the bull's horn caught it while he was scrambling back over the fence to safety. He shook his head to clear it of the confusion, the fear, the remembered terror. He got up, seeing no reason to disturb Atlan, found the hole into which he could relieve himself—did it lead into their last night's route?—and explored the house more thoroughly than he had managed last night, when he and Atlan had been too tired to do much more than verify that they had not walked into an obvious trap, make two rough pallets on the floor, and lay down their heads.
The safe house still appeared to be safe, and stocked for the survival, if not the comfort, of those who used it. Kendik padded about on the packed earth floors, keeping well away from the windows, most of which were shuttered in any case. Outside, he could hear the sounds of a town blinking the sleep out of its eyes; but the sounds were distant, for the most part, and he risked a quick look out of one of the windows on which the shutters were slightly askew. He saw a muddy lane and the blank brick wall of some more substantial building opposite. No one passed by.
He found the kitchen. There wasn't much there: a hot-pot, some pans, a skillet, and in the pantry—protected by a magic ward of the sort his mother had used to keep away mice, rats, and insects— three gourds filled with water and one that smelled like wine; some combs of honey; twenty or so flat, hard cakes of unleavened bread; and, stored in the darkest corner, a few scrubby carrots.
But it was more than enough for breakfast, and Kendik was so hungry that the hard bread smeared with honey tasted delicious. Atlan joined him, still yawning, and the two of them polished off a third of the bread and two combs of honey with little need for conversation. The wine wasn't bad, either, and they each had a cup, feeling that they had earned it after last night's efforts.
Kendik spared a thought for T'shifa. Was she still there in that tent, dying, blood bubbling through her broken snout?
Still, he had done what he must.
"Got that letter?" asked Atlan.
It had been in the top pocket of his tunic, but even so, the envelope was wrinkled and muddied. Kendik drew it out and looked at it. There was no writing on either the front or the back. He itched to open it, but he knew that such things could be magically trapped.
"Probably says 'Kill the man who gives you this'," said Kendik.
"You really think so?"
"No. It would be an elaborate way to kill me—I'm sure a thrust from one of those Ishkarat daggers would have done the job a lot more swiftly. But I do want to find out what it says. I'm going to an apothecary to have it checked for dangers, and then I'm going to read it."
"You can read?"
"I'm an adept."
"What about this woman of yours, this Anarya?"
"She's hardly a 'woman of mine'," rebuked Kendik. As he said it, he felt a stab of longing for Anarya, remembering her as he had last seen her, so beautiful and so distressed. "But I do want to find her. The last time I saw her"—it felt like months ago—"she was heading for the Street of Apothecaries, so maybe I can find some word of her there. But what about you? How are you going to find out who killed your brother?"
Atlan shrugged. "Tag along with you, for a start. Keep my ear to the ground and see what I can find out."
"Sounds painful," said Kendik.
A few minutes later, the two men, cloaked a
gainst the morning chill, stepped out of the lane into the street. The bustle of the central square seemed a long way away. This was a neighborhood of neat houses, single-storied, made of mud brick or wood. Wooden houses were less common, and from two vacant lots filled with charred planks and fireweed, they could see why.
They did pass two guards, who gave them no more than a quick glance, before they turned a corner into the main road to the North Gate, a-bustle with carts and carters, cursing each other as they maneuvered produce in one direction and trade goods in the other: the lifeblood of the town, pulsing through its muddy veins.
"Apothecaries? Third on your left, then second left after that. Wouldn't trust a one of them meself," said a shopkeeper who was brushing spattered mud from the small, hard apples on display outside his shop. Kendik and Atlan were glad to turn out of the thoroughfare and back into quieter streets, a mixture of shops and residences. Here adepts of all kinds, from Elementalists to Weap-onsmiths, plied their trades, advertised by brightly colored signs hanging from the eaves above their doors. There were other trades on offer, too, and the signs of these premises left little doubt as to what could be had within.
"Later," Kendik told Atlan, who was beginning to pant.
The Street of Apothecaries was exactly that, a short street in which the selling, making, and neutralizing of potions seemed to be the sole activity. The signs outside these shops were more discreet. Clearly, this was a place in which a certain level of expertise with the subject matter was assumed.
They walked up and down the length of the street, Kendik trying to decide which shop to enter. He avoided the most prosperous-looking vendors and stopped outside a shop whose sign was so faded by weather and time that it was almost illegible. The windows on either side of its peeling blue door were streaked with dirt. Kendik peered through them, trying to see some sign of life.
"This place looks quiet," he said. "Let's try it."
"How do you know they're on the level?" asked Atlan. "Might poison us themselves, or sell us to the guards."
"We'll have to take our chances with that," said Kendik. He pushed open the door of the apothecary's shop and they stepped inside.
Dust. That was the first impression. Dust everywhere, mantling the shelves and clinging to the spider webs that had long ago colonized every part of the shop but the crooked and cluttered path that led from the door to the counter. And under the dust: books, retorts, alembics, potions. A glint of sunlight shone through one corner of the grimy window and picked out the azure blue of a vial, the carmine ribbon of a scroll. Elsewhere, where the sun did not shine, everything was shaded gray and brown.
But the counter was clear—or rather, a space in the center of it was clear—and there was a bell. Kendik rang it. From somewhere in the back of the shop, behind a curtain, there came mutterings, shiftings from foot to foot, the sound of limbs long past their best being cajoled into action. The curtain twitched, then moved uncertainly aside.
This was age indeed. The dwarf who pushed the curtain aside was old even by the long-lived standards of his race. With the aid of a cane, he stumped and groaned his way to the counter.
"Young human ... young humans ... what do you—?"
The unaccustomed effort to speak brought on a fit of coughing. The dwarf coughed noisily, three times, into a large and grubby handkerchief, which he returned to a pocket so frayed that it was a wonder it could still hold anything.
"If you'd like us to leave—"
"Leave? Leave? No, I don't want you to leave. I'm open for business. I need business, young humans, as you can see. Can't live on books and air alone. Now, what do you have for me?"
"Well," said Kendik, producing Vulumensthetika's letter from his pocket, "I want to know if this is safe to open."
The dwarf took the envelope from Kendik's hand, turned it over, sniffed it.
"This has had a thorough soaking, in the Opthia by the smell of it. Stick it in your pocket and fall in the river, did you?"
"Something like that," said Kendik. "But is it still readable?"
"Can't you read?" asked the dwarf.
"Yes," said Kendik, "but—"
"Ah!" A flicker of genuine interest showed in the dwarf's brown eyes, and the tremor disappeared from his voice. "Something a little different about this letter, is there? Maybe a little dangerous? Because I'm an apothecary, not a scribe, after all."
"I don't know," said Kendik, "but there could be."
"Who gave it you?"
"A t'skrang."
"Tricky devils, t'skrang, but I've not known them to poison letters. Well, if there's to be danger, I'll expect to be well paid for it."
Sighing a little, Kendik dipped into his purse. "Two of these now, and two more when you tell us what it says. That buys your word that you won't tell anyone else."
The dwarf bridled. "Young sir, I give my word. I do not sell it.
But I will give it nonetheless. Now, I'm going to need some equipment, and a friend of mine. You'd best come out the back."
Kendik's opinion of the apothecary increased markedly as soon as they were ushered behind the curtain. This private space was as ordered as the shop was disordered. The volume of items was no less, but their organization was meticulous. Here Kendik saw things of real value: amulets, broaches, vials, and crystal boxes.
"The front's just a junk shop to discourage donkey prodders," said the dwarf. "It's not everyone who gets to see the good stuff. Paliape!"
From the far end of the corridor, another dwarf, female, aged but not as venerable as the apothecary, emerged. "This young gentleman has a letter he'd like us to take a look at. Despite his appearance, he's a well-to-do young gentleman. Here's a gold coin for you, and there's one more if you can tell him what this says."
"Can't he read?"
"He seems to think there's more to this letter than meets the eye."
"Ah. Well, now, let me see. Stand back, stand back."
They stood back, while the Wizard took the letter and bowed her head in thought. It was warm in the back room, and Kendik had the uncomfortable realization that he should have washed the river muck out of his clothes before coming out this morning.
A glint in the corner of the room caught his eye. While Paliape contemplated the letter, Kendik wandered over to see what it came from. On the corner of a table, he saw a gold medallion. It was worked in an intricate pattern, a cat's cradle of filigreed gold—a pattern that drew the eye and then the mind, without ever fully resolving itself. It was so beautiful ...
"Now, then," said Paliape. "You were right, young man. There's something magical about this letter, certainly, but I don't think it's dangerous—to you, anyway. Father, would you open it?"
The ancient dwarf produced a sharp knife and slit the envelope. "Your Name's on it," he said, "and Lord—Lord Tesek's—that's plain enough—but as for the rest ...". He pulled out the parchment within and unfolded it. He read for a moment, stopped, and looked up in surprise.
"Well," said Kendik, "what does it say?"
"No idea," said the apothecary. "I can recognize this as t'skrang script, but I can't read it. Neither of us can read it. We haven't had anything to do with t'skrang."
"Father—" said Paliape.
"Neither of us have had anything to do with t'skrang. We're sorry we can't help you further." He handed Kendik the letter with a haste that belied his age. "Now, gentlemen, permit me to escort you to the exit."
"But I want to buy something!"
"What?"
"That medallion over there."
"Where?"
"On the corner of that table?"
"Oh, that thing. Been here for years. Two gold pieces."
"Are you sure? It's—"
"Two gold pieces!" The dwarf held out his hand, and Kendik, sure that he was getting the bargain of a lifetime, handed over a little more of his dwindling stock of gold, and received gold in return.
Almost before they knew it, they were back on the street, and the apothecary was c
hanging his shop sign to "Closed."
"Seems he can move quickly when he wants to," said Atlan.
"As soon as he started to read it, he didn't want anything more to do with us."
"He'll tell the guards if I'm any judge," said Atlan.
"What, and draw attention to himself? I don't think so."
Atlan shrugged. "You're the boss," he said. "Hope you're right."
Kendik stopped suddenly. "Why am I the boss?" he asked.
"What? Keep on walking, people are staring at you."
The conversation continued in whispers as they strode along.
"Why am I the boss?"
"Well, you're the duke, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not."
"You're not? No, you ... you aren't, are you? I remember, we met you in Bilim, and you begged and pleaded to be allowed to join us."
"I'd hardly say 'begged and pleaded'," replied Kendik with some vigor.
"Well, you asked, then. And we saw you sitting in a corner, and Mors said to me, here's a young fool deserves to be fleeced of his money. That's when we thought you actually had some money."
"I did, until Marla stole it."
"A young fool, just as I said, trusting a tavern wench. But I have to think hard to remember that. All of a sudden I have the feeling that you're in charge."
Kendik puffed out his chest a little. "Seems my True pattern has grown a thread or two."
"Well, milord, don't get too carried away. I didn't notice that Paliape bowing and scraping. Any experienced magician will see through you in an instant."
"Let's avoid magicians, then," said Kendik.
"Still, if it's all the same to you," Atlan continued thoughtfully, "I'll stick with you and try to keep you safe. Mors was my older brother, you know, always the one with the plans. I managed to keep him out of trouble most of the time, until he got this idea in his head there was stuff worth stealing in Axalekso."
"What's Axalekso?"
"You are wet behind the ears, aren't you? It's the new t'skrang city on the northern shore of Lake Vors, the one the Ishkarat built. Any Duke of Borzim ought to know that!"
"Sorry," muttered Kendik.