A Young Man Without Magic (29 page)

“Yes,” Garras snapped. “It's not more than six or seven miles to Beynos, and if we're going to be snowbound, I'd much rather be there than here.”

Anrel glanced back at the unprepossessing village where they had spent the last four days, and saw Garras's point. There was no further work for witches in Kolizand, and little to do there for anyone. Beynos was much larger, with a fine bridge across the Galdin, several grand houses, a paved square, and even a few paved streets.

Still, the snow was coming down fast, great fluffy white flakes that clung to his hat and coat.

“Let's hurry, then,” Anrel said.

Garras snorted. “We will go as fast as Lolo will go,” he called back over his shoulder. “I'm not going to kill our horse because you don't want snow in your beard.”

Anrel hurried through the gate, close behind the wagon, still holding
Tazia's hand; he could not very well argue with Garras about Lolo's capabilities, but he still did not like the idea of traveling six miles in thick snow at their usual leisurely pace. He trotted alongside the wagon, catching up to Garras.

“Perhaps, sir,” he said, “I might go on ahead, with whichever of your family might care to join me, to arrange our lodging, so that Lolo will be able to get in out of the snow that much sooner.”

“Lolo? You mean so
you
can get out of the snow. What a sorry excuse for a man you are, Anrel, to be so frightened of a few flakes!”

“Not frightened, Master Lir, merely discomfited.”

“You need not stay with us if you do not choose to do so, Master Murau. As I recall, our agreement was that you would accompany us to Beynos, where we would part our ways and trouble each other no further. Well, we are almost to Beynos, and if you would prefer to end our pact a few miles early, I certainly won't object.”

That confounded Anrel for a moment; he glanced at Tazia.

“Father, you're being unkind,” Tazia said. “Master Murau makes good sense—why not make sure a warm stall is waiting for Lolo, and a hot fire for the rest of us?”

Garras turned to glare at her, and noticed that Perynis and Nivain were both walking nearby and listening, as well.

“I am in no hurry to depart your company, sir,” Anrel said. “In fact, I had hoped to speak to you about my future plans once we had reached Beynos, and ask your advice.”

That drew Nivain's attention; she threw Tazia a glance that her daughter pointedly ignored.

Garras considered Anrel for a moment, and Anrel did his best to keep his expression open and honest—which meant letting snow blow into his eyes, causing him to blink uncontrollably. He suspected that made him look like a simpering fool, which was not the impression he had been aiming for.

“I cannot stop you from hurrying on ahead,” Garras said at last, “and I will not insist that any such separation must be permanent. I would ask you, though, to leave my family with me.”

Anrel hesitated, and again looked at Tazia.

“He's my father,” she said quietly. “We'll be fine. We've traveled in snow before.”

“I'll have the innkeeper make everything ready,” he said. “A roaring fire, good wine, and a generous dinner will be waiting for you, if I can possibly manage it.”

Tazia smiled at him.

His own words brought a question to mind, though; he turned back to Garras. “I have never stayed in Beynos, Master Lir, but I have passed through it, and seem to remember a multiplicity of signboards,” he said. “Is there a particular inn you would prefer?”

Garras nodded thoughtfully. “A good question,” he said. “In the past we've been made welcome at the Boar's Head, on Cobbler Street—try there first.”

“We'll look for you there,” Tazia said, releasing his hand.

“If circumstances allow, I may instead meet you at the gate,” Anrel said. “But if not, then yes, look for me in Cobbler Street.” He waved a salute to Nivain, and then to Garras, as he broke into a trot. He resisted the temptation to blow Tazia a kiss; he did not think Garras would appreciate such a gesture.

Old Lolo gave Anrel half an eye as Anrel passed, then returned to concentrating on his own feet, trudging steadily onward through the storm.

Anrel hoped that the horse knew the road well, because by the time he had gone a mile from Kolizand's gate the wheel ruts were full of snow and the highway and verge had turned equally white. Anrel could see no more than a dozen yards in any direction; the snowfall was astonishingly dense, as if the Father had decided to make up for a dry and snowless autumn by delivering an entire season's precipitation in a single storm. The sky was so thick with clouds and snow that even now, in the early afternoon, it was as dark as twilight.

Fortunately, the wind was neither strong nor especially cold—there was no chance that the snow would melt anytime soon, but neither did it bite through Anrel's doubled coats, or freeze his breath in his beard. There was little danger anyone would freeze to death in such weather, but losing one's way in the endless, featureless whiteness would be easy.

A glance over his shoulder revealed no trace of the Lir family or their wagon, nor could he distinguish any trace of Kolizand. He broke from his brisk trot into a full run, as much to keep warm as to reach Beynos the sooner.

Almost an hour later he was beginning to wonder whether he had somehow lost the road when he saw lights ahead. It was still midafternoon, but the darkness was apparently enough to cause lanterns to be lit. He slowed his pace and squinted into the swirling gloom, trying to identify the source of the light.

There was a stone wall, he realized—white trimmed with green. There were windows, and lights in the windows.

And directly ahead of him was a city gate, where stood a guard holding a pike. That was mildly unusual; gates were usually left open and untended these days.

Or rather, they had been in days recently past; now that the Grand Council was in session and demons had reportedly been seen on the streets of Lume, who knew what was normal?

“Who goes there?” the guard called as Anrel approached.

“Just a traveler seeking shelter,” Anrel replied, stepping forward into the light of the lantern hung above the gate.

“Traveling in
this
weather? Are you mad?”

“It wasn't yet snowing when I left Kolizand,” Anrel explained. “By the time I realized the storm's severity, it was as easy to press on as to turn back.” He glanced up at the arch above the gate, but snow was plastered across the stone, and if there was any sign there, he could not read it. “Is this Beynos?”

“Yes, of course,” the guard said. “Where else could it be?”

“In
this
weather? It could be Ondine, for all I know.”

The guard laughed at that. “Well, it's Beynos,” he said.

“I am delighted to hear it, Master Guardsman. May I be admitted to the city, then?”

“You're wearing a sword?”

“I have been traveling in lands less civilized than this one,” Anrel said. “I would have put it in my pack when I left those barbarous realms, but it didn't fit.”

“Fair enough—but then I'll need your name, and your destination. The burgrave is wary, in these unsettled times.”

“I don't blame him,” Anrel said. “My name is Dyssan Adirane, and I'm bound for the Boar's Head Inn, on Cobbler Street—a friend recommended it.”

“How long will you be staying in Beynos, then?”

“Perhaps five or six days; then I'll probably go on to Lume, unless I should find reason to change my plans.”

“Are you familiar with Lume?”

“I lived there for a time.”

“You'll find it changed, I think. These are not happy days, Master Adirane.”

“So I have heard.” Anrel hesitated, then said, “By the bye, I passed a wagon on the road—a family of traveling peddlers, I think. They seemed no more inclined to turn back than I was. I spoke with them, and said I might meet them here. If they arrive, and ask after me, tell them where I've gone, would you?”

“The Boar's Head?”

“Exactly. Just to reassure them that I wasn't lost in the snow.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Anrel tipped his hat, then started through the gate.

The guard stepped aside to let him pass, but there was something else, something invisible, that held him back for a moment.

The burgrave of Beynos had apparently been tending to his business; Anrel recognized the hindrance as a powerful warding spell. He wondered just what characteristic of his own made it slow him; he was not here with hostile intent, and he was a loyal Walasian. Could it somehow sense that he was a thief? Anrel had never heard of a ward
that
sophisticated.

Then it yielded, and Anrel stepped through the wards into the city of Beynos.

Anrel said nothing to the gatekeeper about the wards; he was not sure whether an ordinary traveler would even have felt them. To him, though, their presence was unmistakable, and after he was through, Anrel thought he could sense their nature after all. He thought the spells were intended to keep unnatural creatures outside the walls of Beynos.

As an untrained magician Anrel had seemed unnatural enough for a brief delay, but no more.

What did the burgrave fear, to set such wards? What unnatural creatures were abroad? The demons that the empress's hirelings were rumored to have summoned?

Once past the gate and the wards, however, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The snow-covered streets were deserted, though there were enough tracks, and enough mud and slush mixed with the snow, to make it clear that the townsfolk had not been driven indoors by the first flakes. Light shone from several windows, though it was still midafternoon.

Anrel hurried through the eerie silent streets, trying to remember whether he had ever known just where Cobbler Street was. He should have asked the guard at the gate for directions; he cursed himself for not having done so.

As he neared the plaza and bridge at the center of town he saw a few figures moving about—apparently not
all
the streets were deserted.
Admitting to himself that nothing looked familiar, and that he was not sure he would have done much better even without the snow blanketing everything, he resolved to ask one of these people for directions—but then he glimpsed a signboard swinging in the wind down a side street, and stopped to peer at it.

It showed an inverted shoe on a cobbler's last.

Some spirit was apparently feeling helpful. He turned down the side street—little more than an alley, really—and started looking at the other shop fronts.

Yes, they were shoemakers, bootmakers, and cobblers, and what's more, at the end of the little street was a wrought-iron archway surrounding an open gate, and at the peak of the arch was a black iron fantasia largely obscured by wet snow, but which had ears, tusks, and an unmistakable snout protruding from its white covering.

Anrel trotted down the alley and through the gate and found himself in a snowy stable yard; an animal snorted somewhere in the shadows to his right, and Anrel could smell leather and horses. Directly ahead a lantern glowed above a heavy oaken door; he hurried up to the door and knocked.

For a moment nothing happened; then a panel slid aside and a pair of eyes stared out at him, glinting in the lantern light.

“I seek food and lodging,” Anrel said.

A deep voice said, “You're alone and on foot?”

“On foot, yes,” Anrel said. “The rest of my party is an hour behind me—I came ahead to secure us lodging, for ourselves and our horse.”

“How many?”

“Six of us in all, with a wagon, and a good-natured gelding; he'll give your stable hands no trouble.”

The voice did not reply immediately, and Anrel added, “Garras Lir said he had been welcome here in the past.”

The eyes narrowed. “You know Master Lir?”

“He and his family make up the rest of my party,” Anrel said.

“You're traveling with the witches?”

It seemed that not only had the Lirs been here before, but the nature
of their work was known. “I'm
courting
one of the witches,” Anrel said. “Now, are we welcome here, or should I look elsewhere?”

The panel slid shut, and for a moment Anrel thought he was indeed being sent away, but then the latch rattled and the door swung in, revealing a big man a few years past his prime, his once-impressive muscles starting to give way to fat. “You're courting Reva, then?” he asked.

The Lirs
were
known here. “No, Tazia,” Anrel said.

“Ah,” the man said with a nod. “She hasn't her sister's looks, but I'll wager she's more pleasant company. You said they're an hour behind you?” He stepped aside and ushered Anrel in.

“About that,” Anrel said, stepping into the warmth and light of the inn.

“You're wearing a sword,” the man said disapprovingly, once he got a look at his new customer.

“The roads aren't as safe as they used to be,” Anrel replied, looking around. “If you can assure me you'll keep it safe for me, I'll take it off.”

He was standing in a modest wood-paneled room that held two long tables, one on either side, and accompanying benches. A row of hooks on the far wall held half a dozen damp cloaks—none of them of good quality or particularly new, but that was hardly surprising. Half a dozen candles burned in sconces, providing a warm glow; the two windows were shuttered. Four open doors led to other rooms, and Anrel could hear voices from at least one of them. The place smelled, not unpleasantly, of spilled beer, candle wax, and old varnish.

The doorkeeper considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “If you can assure me it will stay in its sheath, you needn't bother.”

“I certainly have no intention of drawing it,” Anrel replied.