Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (34 page)

He was a court mage?
  The information shocked, yet somehow did not surprise.  All the
contacts Tollaf had among the court enclave should have suggested it earlier. 
But why did he leave the court, which must have been a dream position, to
become a mage for a mercenary band?  Celerity’s polite cough jerked him from
his startled musings.

It felt strange to be in the midst of a crowd
discussing the event that had culminated in Tollaf’s mirror exploding, but she
wanted what she wanted, and Marik sensed a wolverine would sooner abandon its
kill to a fox before Celerity would let him escape.  Nothing about the
description Marik gleaned from the few moments of studying the stranger with
his father caught her interest until—

“You are sure they were red eyes?”

“Yes.  Not the whites, but the center.  The iris.  The
whites were normal.”

“What sort of red?”  A troubled expression darkened
her features.

“Like glass.  Or a jewel.”

“Not red like blood?”

“No.  It was a transparent kind of red.  Like bright
blue eyes, only red instead.”

She was unmindful of the crowd flowing around them
while her thoughts consumed her.  Finally, her lost awareness forced Marik to
ask.  “Why?”

“Hmm?”  She fingered her chin.

“What does it matter what color they are?”

“Have you ever seen red eyes before?  Red like that?”

“No, but everyday I find new things I’ve never seen.”

Celerity’s slight smile returned.  “Eyes are windows
to the soul, for the most part.  Loose Devils can assume human forms and cause
tremendous mischief.  Every case chronicled I’ve ever read describes their eyes
as blood red.  It seems to be the one aspect of their beings they can’t alter,
no matter their power.”

“What?”  Marik almost shouted the word.  Was his
father in danger?  He certainly had not looked healthy!

“Or described as completely red, with no white at all. 
A strong Devil might be able to sense his image being scryed with magic, so
this man’s sudden awareness, where he looked straight at you, could have been
that.”

“But—”  Marik’s mind whirled, full of hideous
thoughts.

“Don’t worry,” she said.
  How can she say ‘don’t
worry’?
  “I’m positive this is not such a case.  The eyes don’t sound
right, and any rogue Devil with power enough to shatter a scrying mirror from
the far side of the link would have no need to disguise itself as a human.” 
She shuddered briefly at the idea of such an entity loose in the world.

Marik would not toss the idea aside so quickly.  “But
you could deal with a situation like that, right?  Couldn’t you?”

“I handled a loose Devil once.  The sorcerer who
conjured it lost control and it escaped.  It was relatively small, but it had
full access to its powers.  That made it difficult to deal with.  Don’t worry. 
I know what I speak of.  Whatever that man might be, he is not a Devil.  But
that begs the question of who he is.  Have you any idea why your father might
have a connection with this man?”

“No.  I don’t know anything at all.”

“When the seeking serpent located your father, it
pointed to the west, did it not?”

“To the west, yes,” Marik replied.

“Interesting.  And intriguing.”  She drew her spine
straighter.  “Tollaf was right, I think.  This may be a matter we should be
aware of.  I’m going to spend time in the enclave’s library, then I might need
to contact you.”

Marik verged on asking what for.  The memory of her
edge, so much sharper than Tollaf’s, held him back.  She drifted away without
waiting for his confirmation, leaving him to wonder why the search for his
father had suddenly become an item of interest among the court mages of
Galemar’s king.

*        *        *        *        *

The noise battered his body with such intensity that
it bordered on physical blows, waxing, waning, yet ever present.  Despite the
blazing summer sun baking his skin, Marik’s mind kept envisioning being trapped
within a wall, one made from neither wood nor stone, but pure sound, immobilizing
him through sheer, vibrating force.  He had only seen a crowd this size while
wandering the crescent-shaped camp blockading the Nolier army from Galemar’s
soil.

Many factors had so far reminded him of that time and
place since early morning.  This opening day of the great tournament for the
sword and the title of Galemar’s Strongest only superficially resembled that
military tent city.  Here were a greater number of gaudier tents, apparently
infinite merchandise being peddled, people in droves, herds of animals, food
from all over the kingdom and beyond,
noise
to rival a mountain
collapsing.  It was Summerdawn Festival, traveling acrobat troupes, tavern
rooms, minstrel performances, merchant rows, weapons demonstrations, laughing
town dances and livestock fairs all rolled into one massive, miles-wide sprawl.

On their way to the first event for the competitors,
they had passed contests Marik had never encountered before in his life.  All
were run by gaily dressed men and women, each, he felt certain, employed by the
crown for the festival’s duration.  Thoenar’s cityguard also patrolled in
force, wandering the temporary earthen streets between tents with frequency
while also stationing several guards at each prize-bearing local.  Ostensibly
they protected the prizes from morally ambiguous individuals, but they usually
worked to manage the crowds according to the contest master’s disposition.

Kerwin, eyes afire with a light Marik recognized, left
each of these games behind with a pained expression, the duty to protect
Hilliard outweighing the pleasure and potential profit surrounding him.

And there were certainly an amazing number to leave
behind.  Baron Sestion had hit the nail square on the head.  As the first event
would be held on the tournament grounds’ northernmost reaches, they had needed
to pass through the heart to arrive at their destination that morning.  Even
that early the citizens were in full swing.  While they paused long enough to
ask the stationed cityguards for directions, Marik watched two men drop copper
coins into a fluted crystal wineglass filled with water.  From his angle beside
the tent he could see what happened without having his view blocked by the
crowd gathered around the pair.

The brightly dressed woman running the table on which
the glass sat hovered close by, making comments Marik missed under the constant
cacophony.  Each man would hold his coin a foot over the glass, then drop it
into the water.  With each coin the water level slowly rose, until finally it
splashed over the side when one man’s coin landed flat side down.  He swore
while droplets ran down the glass.

With a broad smile, the woman tipped out the water,
then poured the dripping coppers into the winner’s hands, about twenty or so to
judge by the pile cascading into his broad palms.  Apparently the prize, in
this instance, was the other man’s coins.  Those two left and the woman
accepted a new pair from the crowd.  She filled the glass to half-full from a
silver pitcher.

Hilliard had received directions by then.  They
pressed on.  Games of every sort were being played for small winnings or large,
an amazing variety of smells tantalized their senses and music emitted from
everywhere, mixing at times into a hideous din if a person stood in the wrong
place.  Stories were regaled by tellers from simple minstrels to grand bards,
weapons were sold from stalls, and, clear of the northern tents, the horse
dealers wandered among their penned herds while the Boy Battalion stood at the
rails, pointing at the mounts and whispering.

The trek had made Marik and Landon exceedingly
nervous.  In this crowd, anything at all could happen to their charge simply by
pure chance.  With a possible assassin after his life, this teeming mill would
be a godsend for a killer.  Yet, in spite of the excessive caution and worry,
it all seemed to have been a waste of perfectly good energy.  They had arrived
unharmed, Hilliard had waited patiently through the first eighteen races, then
had set out with the other nine contenders numbered between one-eighty and
one-ninety.

Being his guards, they were allowed to stand beside
the track at the finishing line.  Behind them, massive, raised benches had been
built, twenty rows of long planks, each higher than the one before it.  They
stretched an impressive distance along the track and were capable of seating
over fifteen-thousand according to the builders.  Marik’s eye detected not a
single empty seat.

People lined the entire course length.  The cityguard
were supplemented by the local highwayguards to ensure none strayed across the
line onto the track.  On the farthest stretches the onlookers were clustered
only two and three people deep.  Here by the stands it seemed a river flowed, a
river of neither water nor time, but of the hair from all those packed so
closely, tufting in the faint breeze.

Landon opened his mouth.  The sudden noise swell from
thousands of excited people drowned his words.

“What?” Marik shouted.

“Here they come!” Landon yelled down from where he
stood five feet away atop a raised platform beside the track.

The other three ceased their various activities to
jump beside him.  Kerwin had been gazing across the track to the island where
the very last block awaited the order to line up for their start.  Dietrik had
been flexing his arm, freed from the sling, working the muscles.  Marik had
merely been fretting.

When he stared down the people-wall crowding the track
to where it curved into the woods, Marik distinguished a hazy figure emerging
from the trees.  On the island across from the stands, the tournament
officials, peering through their Captains Glasses, quickly gave orders to the
bevy of pages waiting for exactly this moment.  One young boy ran to a similar
raised platform on their side of the track, brandishing a large painted
signboard with the numbers one-eight-four large enough for everyone opposite to
see.

“That’s Ferdinand Sestion,” Kerwin declared, looking
at the number the page held high.  “No surprise there.  I
knew
I should
have doubled on Walsh against Gardinnier!”

A trailing hazy blur emerged from the trees, followed
a moment later by a second page dashing to a stop beside the first, this one’s
signboard displaying one-eight-nine.

“Maybe you should hold your tongue on that,” Dietrik
advised as it became apparent that Keegan Gardinnier rode hot on the hooves of 
Ferdinand’s mount.

Both would obviously qualify to advance to the next
round.  At the moment they cared little for such details.  Keegan urged his
mount faster, wanting to overtake Ferdinand for the lead.  Not about to allow
that, Ferdinand edged his horse left and right, blocking the trailing animal
from cutting around to the side.

Keegan fell back momentarily when his mount began
flag, Marik thought.  Ferdinand must have thought so too, for he returned his
attention to the track before him.  Having lured his quarry, Keegan spurred his
mount to an impressive speed burst while angling toward the cheering spectators
lining the course.

Ferdinand became aware too late to maneuver his horse
into a block.  Keegan drew even.  They galloped hells for leather, racing
side-by-side for the finish line.

“Where in blazes is Hilliard?” Marik worried when the
two riders crossed half the distance from the woods to where they stood. 
“Maybe something happened!”

“There is another,” Landon pointed.  A third figure
emerged from the trees.  They all glanced to the opposite platform where, a
moment later, a third page clambered over with a signboard displaying,
one-eight-seven.  At the same time, the first two pages received a shouted
order and switched places.

“It’s Delouen,” Kerwin informed them.  Marik fixed his
attention on the lead riders.  Keegan had pulled ahead by half a length.  A
quick look across showed the first two pages were trying to overlap their
boards without obscuring the numbers.

Marik addressed Landon.  “Do you think an assassin
might have been waiting out there for Hilliard?”

“Maybe,” Landon allowed.  “But they would have a
bastard of a time attacking a rider, even if the track were deserted from
spectators, which it is obviously not.”

He was being overly jittery, and probably acting like
a green recruit to boot.  That was the last impression he wanted to project in
front of Landon.  Marik forced his nerves to settle down.  After all, it was a
six mile track through woods, across the Pinedock and back through two
different fords, not to mention the open land stretches, and lined the entire
distance with witnesses.  Of course the contestants would separate as each
rider’s skills emerged.

But he continued worrying until the next two riders
emerged simultaneously.  After a moment’s study through the glass, orders were
given to the pages.  The two new numbers joining the first three were
one-eight-two followed by one-eight-one.

“All right!” Marik shouted.  “There he is!”

“And in a qualifiers spot to boot,” Dietrik shouted
over the crowd.  “Seems he will jolly well advance to the next round, barring a
major catastrophe.”