The Great Bazaar and Brayan’s Gold (9 page)

But he kept hearing Curk’s voice in his head.
Them sticks ent ours, boy.
Curk might have been a coward in the end, but he was right about that. Arlen was no thief. He glanced at Sandar, surprised to find the man awake and staring at him.

“Know what you’re thinking,” Sandar said, “but there’s a lot of loose rock up mountain. Thunderstick’s more likely to cause a landslide than kill that demon.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” Arlen said.

Sandar grunted. “Honest word,” he agreed. “Been trying to figure out why you splinted my leg and put a cold cloth on my head when I’d’ve killed you dead and tossed you off a cliff.”

“Don’t want you dead,” Arlen said. “You can still sit a horse with that splint. You go back peaceful, and I’ll tell Malcum just enough so your license is all you lose.”

Sandar barked a laugh. “Ent Malcum I’m worried about, it’s Count Brayan. He gets wind I tried to rob him, and my head’ll be on a pike before the sun sets.”

“If the shipment gets through, I’ll see to it you keep your head,” Arlen said.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust that,” Sandar said.

Arlen shrugged. “Try and kill me again tonight if you’re up to it, but I warn you, I’m a light sleeper. Cross me again and I’ll break enough bones so you never sit a horse again, then drag you up to Brayan’s Gold with me to look the people you tried to rob in the eye.”

Sandar nodded. “Sleep easy, I’ll go back peaceful. Curk was right. You got a death wish, boy. Seen it before. Odds are you won’t live long enough to tell anyone anything.”

* * * * *

Arlen had already broken camp by the time the demons sank back down into the Core in the pre-dawn light. He and Sandar left the wardstone and parted ways as the sun crested the mountainside.

The temperature grew colder as he ascended the winding mountain path. Spring was on in full on the Milnese plain, but here patches of snow were still visible, and his armor no longer seemed so warm with the wind chilling the steel. He began walking for long periods each day, as much to keep his blood flowing as to take some of the load off Dawn Runner, valiantly doing the work of two horses. They moved slower as a result, but there were still hours left before dark when Arlen reached the next of Brayan’s great wardposts. He kept on, and camped at dusk behind his own circles. The following day he came upon the next post early, and the fourth right at dusk, making camp in its shelter.

The trail grew steeper, trees turning stunted and vegetation sparse amidst the rock and snow. The trail meandered, the never-ending wagon ruts skirting for miles around obstacles that had been too great for the trailblazers to cut or dig through. But still they climbed, and the weather grew colder. The ruts became indentations in the snow, and the trees vanished entirely.

He ceased trying to pass Brayan’s wardposts, so tired by day’s end that he was glad of their protection, though he often had to sweep the snow from them to restore full potency.

On his seventh day out from Miln, Arlen spotted the waystation Malcum had promised, far up the slope. It was a small structure, barely a hut, but after days of freezing cold, biting wind, and loneliness, Arlen was more than ready for a night indoors with someone to talk to.

“Ay, the station!” he cried, his call echoing off the stone facing above.

“Ay, Messenger!” a call came echoing back a moment later.

It was still the better part of an hour before Arlen reached the station, built into the side of the mountain. The warding on the building wasn’t elegant, but it was thorough, and contained many wards Arlen was not familiar with. He took out his journal to quickly sketch them.

The station keeper, a yellow-bearded man wrapped in a heavy jacket lined with nightwolf pelt and bearing Count Brayan’s arms came out to greet him. He was young, perhaps twenty winters, and carried no weapon. He strode right up to Arlen, extending a gloved hand to shake.

“You’re not Sandar,” he said, smiling.

“Sandar broke his leg,” Arlen said.

“There’s a Creator, after all,” the man laughed. “I’m Derek of the Goldmen.”

“Arlen Bales of Tibbet’s Brook,” Arlen replied, gripping the hand firmly.

“So you know what it’s like to live at the end of the world,” Derek said. “I want to hear all about it.” He clapped Arlen’s shoulder. “Coffee’s hot inside, if you want to go warm up. I’ll stable your horse and stow the cart.” It was only midday, but there was no question that Arlen would stay the night. Derek seemed as desperate for someone to talk to as Arlen.

“I’m warm enough to see the cargo stowed.” Arlen said, though his feet and hands ached from the cold, and he could no longer feel his face. After what happened with Sandar, he didn’t intend to let the crates of thundersticks out of his sight until they were under lock and key.

Derek shrugged. “You’re free to suffer as you like.” He took Dawn Runner’s bridle and led the way to a pair of wooden barn doors embedded in the rock face of the mountain.

“Quickly, now,” Derek said, as he grasped the great iron ring hanging from one of the doors, “don’t want to let the heat escape.” He opened the door just enough to admit the cart, and Arlen quickly led Dawn Runner through. There was a moment of sweet warmth, but then an icy wind roared in through the door as Derek was pulling it shut behind them, stealing the comfort.

Shivering, Arlen found himself in a small chamber, walled at the far end with a curtain of thick, ragged furs. Oil lamps flickered on either wall.

Derek took a lamp and drew the curtain aside to allow them passage. Arlen gaped. The entryway was just an alcove at the far end of a vast chamber, cut deep into the mountainside. It was filled with pens to handle teams of animals, granaries for their feed, and stowing area for a dozen carts. It was mostly empty now, but Arlen could well imagine the bustle and energy that ran through this great room when a caravan was passing though.

By the time the cart and horse were stowed, Arlen was sweating in his armor again. He looked about the great chamber, but there was no sign of a furnace vent or fire.

“Why’s it so warm in here?” he asked.

Derek led him to the stone wall and knelt, pointing to a swirling pattern of wards painted at about knee height along the wall in either direction.

Arlen studied the pattern. It wasn’t complex, but it was brilliant. “Heat wards. So the corelings attack the station doors outside…”

“And their magic gets leeched in here to warm the walls,” Derek finished. “Some nights it gets hot as firespit, though. Almost rather be cold.” Arlen, stifling in his armor, understood completely.

They took a side door out of the chamber and into the station itself. The ceiling, walls, and floor were the living stone of the mountain, cut into long halls, doorways and chambers. Heat wards ran along the base of the walls here, too.

“Didn’t realize the station went back so far into the mountain,” Arlen said.

“Nowhere else to go without blocking the road, and that’s narrow enough,” Derek said. “That pine lodge is just the front porch. Come on, I’ll show you your chamber.”

“Thanks,” Arlen said. “If I don’t get out of this ripping armor soon, I’m going to melt. Been sleeping in it a week now.”

“Smells like it,” Derek said. “You can have the royal chamber, seeing as how there’s no one else here to take it. There’s a tub.”

The royal chamber was meant to allow Count Brayan and his heirs the luxury they were accustomed to when they went to inspect the mines. The chamber was very fine, filled with oak furniture, fur rugs, and heat warded stones. Most importantly, there was a proper bed, with a feathered mattress.

“The sun shines at last,” Arlen said.

“Tub’s over there,” Derek said, pointing to a smooth depression in the stone floor beneath a heavy pump. “Pump’s attached to a heated reservoir. Soak as long as you like and then come out for supper.”

Arlen nodded, and the keeper left. He meant to take his armor off and get in the bath, but he fell back on the mattress for a moment, savoring its soft support, and found he didn’t have the strength to rise. He closed his eyes, and fell dead asleep.

* * * * *

Arlen eventually made it out of his armor and over to the bath. Working the pump to fill the tub woke him back up, but the hot soak threatened to put him right out again. It was only the insistent growl of his stomach that made him pull on his clothes and stumble out of his room, feeling practically weightless without his armor.

“Derek?” he called.

“In the kitchen!” he heard the keeper reply. “Follow your nose!”

Arlen sniffed the air, and the growl in his stomach became a roar. His nose led him swiftly to the kitchen, where he found Derek wearing an apron and thick leather gloves as he bustled about.

“Sit,” the keeper told Arlen, pointing to the closest stool at an oval table at the room’s center, large enough for a score of men to eat at once. “Supper will be ready in a moment. You feeling human again?”

Arlen nodded as he sat. “It’s only now that I’m clean, I realize just how filthy I was.”

Derek went to a keg, filling a mug with foaming ale. He slid it across the polished table to Arlen with practiced ease. “Keep the kegs out in the snow till they’re needed. Tapped this one special for you.” He took his own mug and raised it in toast.

Arlen raised his in reply, and they both drank deeply. He looked at his cup in sudden surprise. “Might be a week on the road talking, but I’d swear that’s Boggin’s Ale.”

“All the way from Tibbet’s Brook,” Derek agreed, taking Arlen’s mug and putting a fresh head on it. “There are benefits to knowing every Messenger, wagon driver, and caravan guard by name.”

“Boggin’s was the first ale I ever drank,” Arlen said, taking another swallow and letting it slide slowly over his tongue. Suddenly, he was twelve years old again, listening to Ragen and Old Hog haggling at the General Store in Tibbet’s Brook.

“Nothing’s better than your first,” Derek said.

Arlen nodded, drinking again. “My life changed forever that day.”

Derek laughed. “You and every other man.” He set his mug down to take hollowed loaves of hard bread and fill them with a thick meat and vegetable stew.

Arlen fell on the meal like a coreling, tearing chunks of the warm crust and using them to scoop the delicious stew into his mouth. In minutes, he had scraped the plate clean down to the last crumb and speck of gravy. No meal in his life had ever been so satisfying.

“Night, even my mam never cooked like that,” he said.

Derek smiled. “Ent got much else to do out here, so I’ve become a fair hand in the kitchen.” He cleared the plates and ale mugs, replacing them with coffee cups. The brew smelled amazing.

“We can take the coffee out on the porch and watch the sunset, if you like,” Derek said. “Got big windows made of that new warded glass they started making a couple years ago. You ever seen that?”

Arlen smiled. He was the one who had brought the glass wards to Miln, and Cob’s shop did all Count Brayan’s glasswork. He had probably warded the panes himself.

“I’ve heard of it,” he said, not wanting to deflate the keeper, who looked quite proud.

As they left the kitchen, the stone floor became smooth pine boards, and they came to a large common area with fine pillowed benches and low tables. Arlen’s eyes were immediately drawn to the window, and he gasped.

He had once thought the view of the mountains from the roof of the Duke’s Library in Miln was the grandest in the world, but it was only a fraction of the view from the waystation, which seemed to tower over the mountains themselves. Far below, clouds swirled, and when they parted, he could see the tiny speck of Fort Miln, far, far below.

They sat by the windows, and Derek produced a pair of pipes and a weed pouch, along with a drybox of matches. For a short while, they smoked and drank their coffee in silence, watching the sun set from the top of the world.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful,” Arlen said.

Derek sighed, sipping his coffee. “Used to think so, too, but now it’s just the fourth wall of my prison.”

Arlen looked at him, and Derek blushed. “Sorry. Don’t mean to steal the sight from you.”

Arlen waved the thought away. “Honest word, I know how you feel. How often do they relieve you?”

“Used to be one month off and one on,” Derek said, “but then I got caught in an abandoned shaft with the Baron’s daughter over the winter, and he nearly had my stones cut off. Said he’d be corespawned before his daughter married a Servant. Been stuck out here three months now with no relief. Reckon she must’ve bled by now, else they would’ve called me back and fetched a Tender. I’ll be lucky if they let me come home when the station closes for the winter.”

“You’ve been alone here for three months?” Arlen asked. The thought was maddening.

“Mostly,” the keeper said. “Messenger comes every fortnight, give or take, and caravans come a few times a year. Weeks on my arse, and then suddenly I’ve got a dozen wagons and fifty head of cattle and pack animals to manage, along with thirty guards needing quarter and a Royal to shout at me as I tend them.”

“Was she worth it?” Arlen asked.

Derek chuckled. “Stasy Talor? Ent no girl in the world finer, and you can tell her I said so. I could just as easily have ended up the Baron’s son in law instead of exiled out here.”

“Can’t you quit?” Arlen asked. “Find some other work?”

Derek shook his head. “There’s only one work in Brayan’s Gold, and that’s what the baron gives you. If he says spend all year at the waystation, well…” he shrugged. “Still, I reckon talking to myself all day is better than swinging a pick in a dark mine shaft, worrying about cave-ins or digging too deep and opening a path to the Core.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Arlen said.

“Looks safer than Messaging, too,” Derek said. “What happened to your cheek?”

Arlen reached up on reflex, running his fingers lightly over the wound where the bandit’s arrow had pierced his cheek. He had treated it with herbs before stitching and it was healing well enough, but the flesh around the wound was an angry red and crusted with blood, obvious to anyone at a glance.