The Magic of Recluce (28 page)

Leaning back against the rock alcove with Gairloch right below and with the afternoon sun warming the black slab behind me, I finally re-read Justen's note.

I still hadn't had time to read the whole book, and on the mountainside wasn't exactly the place to do that in any case. But Justen had been right more than once…and that was more than enough reason to think about what I was to do before I descended the rest of the way into Gallos and Passera.

Besides the simple matter of survival, I had two problems—neither insurmountable, but both requiring solutions. First, my supply of coins, not exactly large to begin with, was running short, even despite Justen's provisions. The loss of nearly four golds for a short night's lodging in Carsonn and the grain cakes for Gairloch had not helped in that matter; although, balanced against the payment for the sheep-healing, I was somewhat better off than I would have been, and a good hundred fifty kays further toward the Westhorns.

Second, I still didn't have the faintest idea of the problem or cause or whatever-it-was that I was supposed to resolve. This business of blind traveling and quests was getting tiresome, if not plain boring.

Whatever I didn't know, I did know two things. If I kept blundering into towns and problems, sooner or later an unseen crossbow quarrel or rifle shot would leave me in less than ideal shape, if not dead. That assumed that Gallos would allow rifles; some of the Candarian duchies classed firearms as chaos-weapons, rather than undependable heat-energy weapons. But dead would be dead, one way or another.

I'd also realized from the unusual nature of the storm on the hills of Certis, and from the unguarded look of the nasty innkeeper's wife when I had mentioned the unseasonable storm, that the ice and snow had not been entirely natural…not at all. It also meant that someone hadn't exactly been able to locate me, with magic or otherwise.

Gairloch—the pony was another question I had ignored, and kept ignoring. Why did he trust me, and a few ostlers only? Had his presence in Freetown been coincidental? Or a matter of odds?

I looked away from the view of Gallos and down at the not-quite-shaggy golden-brown of his heavy coat. No animal less sturdy would have managed what we had gone through nearly so well.

With another sigh, I reached out with my feelings…looking…

…and came away shaking my head. Gairloch was a mountain pony, but not just a mountain pony. Just as I had strengthened the innate sense of order within the sheep of Montgren, so had someone strengthened that order within Gairloch, to the point that the pony would lash out or shy away from anyone manifesting disorder. That was all, and yet…

I shook my head. Someone, something, had thought farther ahead than I cared to speculate. Even with my back against the warm rock, I shivered.

I still wasn't thinking fast enough.

So I sat on the outcropping and tried to think out what I had to do next. I had to learn what was in the book and to apply it. I had to make a living of sorts with enough space and time to read. And I had to avoid getting much notice. That was especially important, particularly if my disappearance from an apparently locked room in Carsonn were relayed to Antonin or whichever chaos-wizard was after me.

I didn't understand
why
, though. I wasn't as dangerous as Justen, and Tamra was certainly as much a threat as I was. I shook my head, wondering where she was and what she was doing.

Avoiding further notice meant avoiding Passera. If it took a whole troop to cross the Easthorns, a single rider would be seen as magician, or bandit, or common thief, and even given my recent outlays, the amount of coins I carried would give full suspicion to one of those assumptions.

All this led to the need to reach Fenard, a town large enough for me to seek a woodcrafter who needed an extra hand without raising too many questions.

I sighed. Every time I thought, the problems got more complex and involved more than just me.

“Come on…we've got another piece to travel, and a few more nights on the road.”

Click…click
… Gairloch's shoes clicked on the smoothed stones of the highway as it descended down the long slope to Passera, and, eventually, toward Fenard.

T
HE BLOND WOMAN
juggles the knife as she rides, glancing ahead, then back at the rotund trader perched on the gray mare that walks heavily beside the lead pack mule. “No trouble yet.”

The trader eyes the black-haired woman—shapely, even in the faded blue tunic and trousers—on the scarred battle-pony, who scans the road ahead.

The older woman, the black-eyed and black-haired one, turns to catch the trader's appraising stare. She touches the blade at her belt, and a faint smile crosses her lips.

The trader sees the smile and the hand on the hilt of the blade and shivers. “See…anything?” he stammers.

“Could be…there's a line of dust headed our way. Only a single rider, though. No trouble there.”

“You fixing to join up with the autarch?” asks the trader, each word tumbling out almost before the last is finished.

“Why?” asks the blonde.

“The word is that Kyphros needs blades; the autarch doesn't care whether they're men or women, just so long as they're good.”

“I don't know…” The blonde's voice is flat.

“We'll see after we deliver you…and collect our pay…” laughs the older woman.

Her laugh is not a laugh, and the trader shivers again.

The blond woman rides further ahead, and the dark-haired woman's free hand strays toward the hilt of her blade.

S
KIRTING
P
ASSERA WAS
easy enough, except for the river bridge that held towers and a guard force. While the towers would hold against brigands, I doubted they would stop even a few score of well-trained and armed men.

They didn't have to. The gate just had to stop us. So Gairloch and I waited nearly till dusk, until I sensed the gate about to open and slipped through going the other direction. They even left the gate open while three of them checked under the bridge from the mountain side.

I didn't wait for them to finish, taking Gairloch step by slow step across the stones, hoping that the gentle click of his hooves would be muffled by the rush of the narrow river below the bridge.

All the practice had given me a fairly good sense of place without seeing, but I still worried that someone could see through the reflective shield. In a way, it was faith, sheer faith, to walk beside an armed guard with a sword ready to use, separated from that violence by the thinnest of light-curtains…and I couldn't even sigh.

Beyond the gate, Passera was open enough, though Gairloch and I quickly left it well behind as we continued into the forested hills beyond the town. I dropped the shield as soon as possible after turning into the trees once the road curved out of sight.

From that point on, I would be a journeyman woodworker, with only a horse left because of my unsettled youth and the trouble in Freetown.

With each step toward the plains of Gallos, the hills became more gentle, the trees less frequent, and the air warmer, if a temperature that left the clay of the road a cold gelatin rather than stone-hard ice could be called warm. The rock fences by the road gave way to rock posts and split rails, and these in turn were replaced by all-wooden rail fences that seemed too spindly to contain stock or to hold up against a strong wind.

The infrequent and clear brooks gave way to half-empty or totally empty canals flowing in grids between ever vaster and flatter expanses of stubbled fields.

After Passera, I finally stopped in a crossroads with no name and slept in the stable with Gairloch. It looked cleaner than the battered inn. Even so, the cost was three coppers for me and two for Gairloch. I didn't ask about a room.

For breakfast, I paid another copper for half a loaf—a
small
half-loaf—of brown bread, and a cup of redberry.

From there, another day took me into land so flat and treeless that you almost couldn't tell where the horizon was. In the middle of the treeless expanse flowed the River Gallos, nearly a kay across and less than a rod deep in early winter. Two side-by-side stone spans crossed it, one for traffic in each direction, each one wide enough for the largest of farm wagons. Another night in a stable followed, but the Prosperity Inn in Neblitt offered edible food and a clean strawpile for no more than the night before.

The right-hand road out of Neblitt and the end of the third day brought me to the low hills leading up to Fenard, and the welcome sight of trees. Bare and leafless trees, not conifers, but trees nonetheless.

It also brought the second guard station.

“Where are you bound, young fellow?”

“Fenard.”

“For the guards?”

I looked at the two brawny soldiers and shook my head. “I don't know much about war. I'm just a journeyman woodcrafter.”

“Where are your tools?” the narrow-faced one asked.

“That's my problem, ser. I was in Freetown…and things changed rather sudden-like…” I shrugged.

The two looked at each other. “Any weapons?”

“Just my belt knife. I can hold my own with it.”

The guards, veterans each, tried to hold back their grins. So did I. I would have grinned in their place.

“You understand, young fellow, that if you can't support yourself, you have to leave Fenard or join the guards?”

“I would?” I asked, trying to look puzzled.

“You would.”

Creaakkkkk
…A wagon pulled up onto the stones behind me.

“Be on your way, fellow.”

I flicked the reins, and Gairloch carried me forward and up the slope. Three hills and a bridge later, and near supper time and twilight, we stopped at the city gate. On the horizon to the north and to the west I could see a glitter of light, presumably the not-too-distant Westhorns.

Unlike Jellico, the wall around Fenard was token, where it existed, and the gate was more of a formality than a real check. A bored and much flabbier guard than the one at the hillside gate looked at me and waved me on.

Once in the streets, I stopped a youngster, round-cheeked and grinning, to ask for directions to the quarter with the most woodworkers.

“Mills, you mean? They're out the mill gate, not in the city.”

“No, fine carpenters, crafters.”

“The kind that make cabinets and chairs?”

I nodded.

“That's by the mill quarter, straight down the market street there, as far as you can go. A copper, and I'll show you myself, take you right to the Tap Inn, where Masters Perlot and Jirrle drink. They might be there now.”

I tossed him the copper. “I can barely afford that, boy.”

The barefoot youth just grinned. “Come on. Move that toy pony.”

I could have found the Tap Inn with little difficulty, and even one copper was getting to be important. Sometimes you guess wrong, and the youngster probably needed the copper more than I did.

At the crossing of the unnamed street to the mill gate and the market street, also without a name written down anywhere, stood a narrow two-story timber building. Only the hearth and chimney were stone, although the street-level walls were a grayed plaster applied over the old timbers. The roof bowed, and pigeons roosted under the eaves on the end away from the hearth.

A portly and balding man stood, in a leather vest and no jacket, levering a long pole into the street's single oil lamp. As Gairloch skirted a tinker and his pushcart, the man coaxed the lamp into light, even though the sun's red ball had not yet dropped from the twilight sky.

Two middle-aged men, not quite stooped nor erect, wearing dark cloaks, stepped into the narrow doorway on the market street side. As the door opened, a burst of laughter escaped.

“…scoundrels…”

“…away from…”

My guide pointed. “That's the place. The stable's in back.”

“What's your name?”

“Erlyn. You can find me near the east gate most afternoons.” He turned and was gone, almost at a run.

The Tap Inn was mostly eatery and drinkery, with five empty stalls that barely merited the title of stable, but there was an overhead loft, and another copper gained me the privilege of paying three coppers to sleep there and three more to stable Gairloch. The stablehand was rushed, trying to get back to the inn, where—from his club, heavy arms, large belly, and low voice—his job appeared to be keeping order while stuffing himself from the kitchen.

“No trouble, boy! You understand? Keep that mountain beast under control, and close that stall door.”

I nodded and began to brush Gairloch.

Much as I needed to eat, and to listen to the whispered soul of Fenard as unfiltered through loosened tongues, I was in no hurry. I forced myself, after I had found some grain for Gairloch, to amble into the Tap Inn through the same side door I had watched the older men enter.

Holding back, I winced at the din while I let my eyes adjust. Half a dozen men gathered at the sole round table in the room, each cradling a tankard—big earthenware mugs, really.

Four widely-spaced wall oil lamps and a low fire supplied the light. Grease burning off a stove somewhere and green wood burning in the fireplace supplemented the acrid smoke. Add to that the sourness of spilled raw wine and cheap beer, the sweat of working men, and the combined odor defined the Tap Inn. I preferred the stable.

Instead, I eased for a small corner table—vacant, as I discovered, because it wobbled alarmingly on the uneven plank floor.

“Wine or beer?” The serving-girl had unruly black hair, a thin face and body, and a livid slash-scar from the right corner of her mouth to her ear.

“You have redberry?”

“Costs a copper, just like a beer.”

“Redberry. Bread and cheese?”

“A copper gets you two slices and a small wedge of yellow. Two, and you get four slices and a wedge of white.”

“Two slices and the yellow.” I put two coppers on the table, then covered them with my hand.

She nodded and left. “Red stuff and a small bread and cheese.”

The six men around the center table were joined by a seventh.

“Rasten! Always the last. Did your new apprentice have to slaughter the horse for glue?”

“Double vine for the man!”

Thunk!
Redberry slopped onto my hand, and by the time I looked up the girl was flirting with the stooped Rasten. He didn't seem to mind at all.

A pair, not much older than me, sitting a table away began to talk louder, to be heard over the older center group.

“…you think about Destrin? That daughter…”

“…she's nice enough…”

“…no future there…”

Seeing the serving-girl coming, I had the coppers and my question ready. “Which one is Perlot?”

She jabbed a thumb at the seven, including Rasten the latecomer. “Silver hair, thin guy next to the fellow nearest the door. Want anything else?”

“Not now.”

She was headed back to flirt with Rasten.

The bread was neither fresh nor stale, but somewhere in the middle; but the cheese was sharp and cool, better than I expected.

“…benches for the pits…and they wanted black oak, for that price. Can you believe that?”

“…another wizard loose in the Easthorns…walked through a wall…”

“…just an excuse because the fellow skipped and didn't pay, that's all…”

The pair nearest me got up and left. No one took their place.

Sitting in the corner on the long bench, I nursed one redberry, then another, listening not only to the older group, but to others scattered throughout the room…

“…apprenticeship? With his daughter? That's a prison…”

“…he'd like those golden chains! Wouldn't you, Sander? Wouldn't you?”

“…frig out…”

“…say some of the old duke's guard trying to carve out their own place…”

“…Northern Kyphros…”

“…wilderness…”

“…autarch will show them…”

“…how you'd like her bed?…”

“Let's have another round.”

“Who's paying?”

Between the continuing smoke from the kitchen, the pervasiveness of soured beer and wine, and the acridness of green wood in the hearth, my eyes burned, but I kept listening, waving away the thin serving-girl with the scar down her cheek, nursing my second redberry, and watching…

Perlot pulled back his chair, and I started to stand up, then sat down. Approaching a craft-master in a tavern was an invitation to trouble. So I waited for him to leave before I made my way out to the stable and Gairloch.

Although the air was cleaner and the stable far warmer than the Easthorns had been, my sleep was restless, as if the thunder of that sudden winter storm in Certis still echoed in my head, and I kept hearing the phrase “another wizard in the Easthorns.” In time I did sleep, though I woke and washed in the trough before the stablehand arrived.

He didn't know exactly where Perlot's shop was, but pointed generally to the far side of the mill quarter, and I greased him with another copper to leave Gairloch for the day.

“Before sunset, boy!”

I didn't grin, but we both knew that he wouldn't touch Gairloch with even a pitchfork. All being late would cost me was money, and I was losing that fast enough anyway.

Perlot's Crafting
. That was what the sign read. Under the sign was a display window with a cabinet and a wooden armchair, both darkened red oak in the Hamorian style. The crafting was better than anything I had seen since leaving Uncle Sardit, and the cabinet might even have gotten a nod from him.

Since the door was ajar, and no customers were standing in the waiting area, I stepped inside.

On the other side of the half-wall, the craft-master was directing two others, a junior apprentice, and either a young journeyman or senior apprentice slightly older than I was. They were discussing the composition of an oil finish.

“You there. I'll be with you shortly.”

“Please don't hurry on my account, mastercrafter,” I answered, carefully inclining my head. Then I walked to the back side of the display window to inspect the three-drawered cabinet, comparing it more closely to my recollections of Uncle Sardit's work.

“What do you think?” Perlot's voice was even more raspy in the morning.

I turned to face him.

“Well…you seem to know something about woodwork. What do you think?”

I swallowed. “The finish is superb, as are the proportions. The grain on the side panel is angled, not much, but enough to detract. Since the joins are hidden, I can't say much about the strength, but the mitering doesn't jam the wood or leave gaps.”

“What about the wood?”

“The cabinetry is better than the oak. The design would have been better in black oak, but that might have raised the cost to more than most buyers would pay.”

Perlot nodded. “You're looking for a job, that's clear, and you know what's expected. That's clear, too. I can't help you.” The words rushed together, as if he wanted to be done with them.

“I see.” It was my turn to nod. “Do you know any crafter who might be able to use a junior journeyman?”

The mastercrafter rubbed his chin. “Among the good ones…no. We all have more relatives than work.” Then he laughed. “If you're as good as you talk, you might try old Destrin. He could use the help, but…” The man shrugged.