Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (52 page)

Ilona reasserted herself, dripping sugar and
honeysuckle.  “Would we now?  He usually runs the shop, then?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, trying to fill his vision with
Ilona while absenting Marik.  “I’m looking after things today while he’s at the
tournament.”

“Actually, I hoped to talk with him,” she stated with
disappointment.  “A mutual acquaintance told me your father could help with a
special order I need.”

“Oh, I can help you with that!  Surely!  What do you
need?” 
Glance.

Bang
!  Marik
dropped the heavy lead weight from the counter’s scale that he had been
fiddling with.  The noise when it hit the flat countertop startled the youth
badly.

“My apologies,” Marik said, sounding utterly
unrepentant.  He met the young man’s gaze eye-to-eye.  It satisfied him to see
the punk turn away first.  “We,” he intoned with a harsher edge, “are looking
for an item a…colleague of mine crafted.”

“An item…um.  You mean one of our scales?” He
nervously gestured to a shelf behind him displaying several measuring scales. 
“They are very fine quality.  Never off at all and finely balanced.”

“No,” Marik growled before Ilona overrode him with,
“I’m afraid not.”  A furious glance at Marik followed.  “My friend told me your
father might have received a few items of jewelry created by a master
craftsman.  There was a particular bracelet I was interested in.”

That confused the young man.  “Jewelry?  No, we never
carry stock like that.  We only sell stock to alchemists.”  A nervous flick of
his eyes at Marik.  “And any magicians who come in, now and then.”

Marik glowered.  “Yeah?  Is that right?”

Swallowing, the youth held fast.  “Yes.  Other than
the scales, we only sell the chemicals you see on the shelves.”

Ilona drove Marik away under the force of a clear,
silent message.  While she worked to regain her rapport with the youth, Marik
resumed wandering the small shop.  Common enough stock, no matter that it
originated from the other side of Merinor.  Crushed leaves and powdered clays
and bars of dried, if still pliable, tar.

She gained nothing else from her spooked admirer. 
After waiting long enough to receive the written instructions for making
weaponblack so they would not seem more suspicious than they already did, Ilona
tugged Marik out the door.

“I don’t know why I expected anything else,” she
muttered low enough that Marik suspected the words were meant for no one’s ears
but hers.  Louder, she demanded, “Have you any idea what ‘delicate’ means?  Is
it a word you’ve ever run across before?”

He glowered back at her.  “If delicate means having a
shopkeeper fresh out of swaddling clothes drool all over your…uh…yourself, then
I’m sure I don’t.”

Ilona tore into him as Dietrik noticed their exit. 
She jabbed a finger into his unprotected gut.  “In this city, you can get your
throat cut for sneezing at the wrong time!  Don’t presume to second guess me! 
If you continue groping around like a blind man, you’ll get us both killed! 
I’ll not have you making a dog’s breakfast of everything!”

Dietrik came within earshot when Marik, his dignity
needled, heatedly countered with, “And if
you
keep dallying along like a
reluctant mule, we’ll never get through the whole list of shops!”

He instantly regretted the sharp comment.  Her eyes
flattened.  Marik reexamined all the different ways his last comment could have
been interpreted.  “Rushing in and calling attention is the death of fools and
the addled,” she hissed.  “Do what I say at the next shop or I will leave you
in the street.  I am perfectly capable of seeing to my own affairs unaided.”

“I don’t suppose,” Dietrik asked drolly, Ilona
stalking off down the street like an angry she-bear, “that you are going to
tell me what happened in there any time soon, are you?  I only ask because I
have the strangest feeling you upset her in some manner.”

“Shut up,” Marik snapped, but then began relating the
events while they followed Ilona.

“So what you are saying,” Dietrik summed up three
streets later, “is that I can’t cross this shop off the list yet.  The boy’s
father might be running hot stock direct out of the back room without letting
on.”

Marik shrugged.  He had not given it much thought, his
concerns primarily on weathering Ilona’s wrath.  “The son seemed to know as
much about the shop as anything else.  But no, I guess you’re right.  Better
keep that one listed as questionable.”

A full mark had passed since leaving the Standing
Spell.  Given the average time required to travel anywhere within the city,
Marik quickly gave over the faint hope they might finish that afternoon. 
Unless they struck gold with the next few shops, they would need to continue
tomorrow.

Watching Ilona’s back, Marik decided there were worst
turn of events. 
Unless you succeed in continuing your magnificent campaign
of irritating her as much as possible.  She might refuse to search with us
tomorrow.

The thought of her refusing to join them felt as black
as the notion of failing in his duty to safeguard Hilliard.  Convincing her to
remain with them became a crucial element.  Finding the lair of the Spirrattan
assassins, assuming all their postulates were correct, probably would not be
possible without her.  They might as well try to make a candle when they had
nothing to serve as a wick. 
Can’t be done.

His mind articulated it all in feelings rather than
coherent words, too busy was it studying the inch or so of her lower spine that
was revealed every nine or ten steps.  When they arrived at the next shop a
half-mark later, it culminated in the grudging resolution to submit to whatever
methods she determined to use.  It would keep her content.  Hopefully.

No bell dangled behind this shop’s door.  It hardly
needed one as the shopkeeper, along with four friends, were perched around a
small table only feet away.  A small iron stove burning split logs squatted
near the corner between the table and the wall, driving the temperature into a
range seldom found outside the Kello-beii desert.  Marik felt the hot air hit
him as though he had walked head-on into a tree.

He might have questioned the shopkeeper about the
reason for keeping his stove lit during the summer months, but one look at the
group argued against him opening his mouth for any reason.  If his sword were
not stuffed away in a brothel across the city, his resolve would have a steel
backbone to help it stand taller.  Ilona was welcome to take the lead she so
desired.

None of the five men were large, most no bigger than
he.  What stoked his alertness was an air of hostility around them.  He knew
men in other squads around Kingshome who struck him the same way, as though
throwing a dagger at you or dropping you from the wall might be the most
amusing thing they had ever seen.  His chainmail’s absent weight made him
nervous.

Three men shifted their attention to the two
trespassers interrupting their game of trident.  The other two were in the
midst of a
grab.
  Marik was keenly alert to the scrutiny they were
subjected to, and to the higher level of interest Ilona garnered.  In an
attempt to seem unmindful of their study, he centered his attention on the two
still playing.

The dice on the table showed a green three and a red
four.  They rested on either side of a leather tube, from which over forty thin
wooden stick tips emerged.  Presumably, it was the man on the left’s turn. 
Across sat his opponent, whom the first had chosen from among the other
players.

So chosen, the second man uncovered his five sticks
down to the third notch.  His fist concealed the lower marks carved at the
three successive notches below while his other cupped hand shielded the view
from the others.   With a quick snap, he completely covered the sticks by
closing his cupped hand over the tops so only the tips protruded.  The four
seconds required by the red die to reveal his hand had expired.  Still ignoring
Marik and Ilona’s interruption, the first chose which stick he wanted and
pulled it free of the former owner’s grasp.  He made a distasteful grimace
after seeing the prime symbol carved under the last notch.  Apparently he had
not received the stick he hoped for.

He hid the stick away with the rest of his hand under
one leg, at last glancing sideways to them while the second player drew a
replacement stick from the tube.  Marik had the fleeting impression the man
examined him from head to toe in an instant, pausing only to pass a judgement
on his robe.  Whatever conclusion he arrived at, Marik felt it boded ill for
them.

“And what do you want?”  There was no hint of the
polite manner shopkeepers usually greeted prospective customers in.  “Oh, let
me guess.  You’re after components, eh?  And hard to find ones at that.”

“Well…” Marik began.  Ilona cut him off in a tone far
less sugary than used on the previous shop’s proprietor.  “We might be.  This
is a shop, after all.  That was the prevailing impression the building gave me
from outside.”

The man propped his elbow on the small table to rest
his head on his hand.  His friends grinned, suggesting a familiar routine was
about to commence.  “Did it, then?”  He addressed the nearest of his comrades. 
“Why is it that my poor little shop always seems to attract these types?”

His friend shrugged, still grinning.  “Dunno’, Reed. 
Maybe you need to paint your widow shutters.”

“Perhaps that’s it.”  Reed faced back to the pair. 
“So tell me what you fancy.  I can tell you aren’t with the guard.  They always
come dressed in showy silks when they think I’m double-shuffling merchandise
through my stockroom they might be interested in.  I suppose that makes you
somewhat trustworthy.”

“What makes you think I have any interest in illicit
components?” Ilona asked with heat while Marik’s mind raced.

He knows I’m not a magician!  Or at least, he suspects
I’m not.  What’s he up to?  He must deal with enough legitimate magicians to
recognize me for a fake.  It must have been this robe!

Reed only gazed musingly at her.  “Types like you
never wander through my door by chance.  You always get directed to me.  One of
these days I’ll have to nail down who keeps sending you people here.”

“So long as it’s not today, Reed,” said one of the
others.  “I’m not letting you squidge out of the game when I’m ahead for
once.”  The speaker rose from his chair to retrieve one of several cups filled
with water sitting on a countertop separating the business floor from the
shop’s backrooms.

He’s getting into position.
  Marik’s fighting experience recognized the move for
what it was.  After emptying the water from the glass, the man continued
standing near the counter, which lay mostly behind his and Ilona’s field of
view.  
Reed thinks we’re up to mischief.  Does he know?  No, that’s
impossible.  He doesn’t think I’m a magician, because of how awkward this robe
is on me.  Or maybe he sees it’s no fit robe at all for a proper magician. 
Does he think I’m a hedge-wizard then?

Ilona played it sly.  “Well then, as it happens, there
is an item or two of interest to me, which I hoped you could help me obtain.”

Reed nodded before shifting his gaze to Marik.  “And
he’s with you, undoubtedly.  A peculiar pair, I would say.  He must know a
spell or two that helps you get into places others would have you stay away
from.”  The man smiled as though he doubted it.

A second player rose, ostensibly to join the first for
a sip of water in the shop’s blazing heat. 
That might be it.  He thinks I’m
probably a hedge-wizard struggling to master my magical abilities.  Others like
that might have come to his shop before, looking for illegal components they
thought would enable them to cast powerful magic.  Reed looks like a sharp one;
low enough to prey on the weak and mean enough to do it.  The type of
hedge-wizard who goes after illegal components must have gathered a few items
of value by the time he wandered in here.  Reed’s probably collected enough
gold by preying on weak magicians to make taking the risk worthwhile.

Marik slowly loosened the cord tying the soot pouch
closed, careful not to accidentally loosen the cord tying it to the belt
instead.

“What he does is not your concern.  I believe you
might have come into possession of an item that could greatly help me in my
work.  Do you want to play games until nightfall, or start talking business?”

Quickly shifting to magesight, Marik floated a foot
from his body to see behind him.  The two thirsty thugs slowly inched closer
while Reed verbally bantered with Ilona.  Marik snapped back into his body as
soon as he had left it, which meant he missed none of the conversation while
his consciousness traveled the etheric plane.

“I’m always ready to talk business, sister.  What we
haven’t talked about is whether I have these
items
you yearn for.”

Marik sidled sideways so his right arm was concealed
from view behind Ilona, using her to hide his fingers dipping into the pouch. 
The soot smeared across one finger tip and he hoped she had mixed in plenty of
black powder.  He also prayed it would not injure him.