TST (47 page)

“Will milord be staying the night?”

“Do you know if there are rooms available?” Azerick asked.

“Oh yes, milord, the Golden Glade always has the best rooms available. Except during winter festival, they tend to fill up rather quick ‘round the holiday,” the groom replied helpfully.

“What is your name?”

“Peck, if it pleases milord.” The boy then grinned broadly. “Course Peck ain’t me real name but that’s what everybody calls me on account of how small I am.”

“Well, Peck, take good care of Horse for me,” Azerick instructed as he slipped a gold coin into the boy’s small grubby palm. “Brush him down real good and give him the best oats and feed you have. I will probably be staying for several days at least.”

Peck looked at the small fortune in his hand, an amount that would likely take him a year or more to save up if he did not spend a single copper on such necessities as food, clothes, or shoes.

“Aye, milord, I’ll take special care of him I will!” Peck shouted excitedly until Azerick put a finger to his lips and looked pointedly at the two older boys watching from the rear of the stable.

“Oh aye, milord, I catch yer meaning,” Peck replied cautiously.

Azerick had lived in the streets long enough to know that if a smaller boy came into any kind of wealth he would likely lose it rather quickly to anyone big enough to take it away from him and it looked as though Peck knew such things as well.

Peck took Horse to one of the open stalls, removed his saddle and tack, filled the manger with fresh hay and oats, and began vigorously brushing the horse down. Wally and John walked over to the stall where Peck was busily brushing down the pauper’s horse.

“So did the raggedy man tip ya, Peck, or did he stiff ya?” Wally asked the smaller boy.

Peck gave a noncommittal shrug. “Just a single, better than nothin I guess.”

“Ha, a single copper, I told ya the guy was a bum, Wally,” John said as he elbowed Wally. “I can smell a cheapskate a mile away I can. Those are the ones we give to Peck!”

Peck just smiled as he brushed the miles of travel out of Horse’s coat.

Azerick stepped through the solid yet decorative door at the front of the inn. A few well-dressed patrons watched him warily as he entered and approached the bar.

“Can I help you, sir?” the innkeeper asked casually.

“I need a room for a few nights, maybe longer,” Azerick replied.

The man behind the bar looked at Azerick’s clothes and the trail dirt covering his face. “I have a few vacancies but you might find the rates in this part of the city a bit exorbitant. There are quite a few decent places in the lower quarter that can be had for a fraction of what I have to charge. I’d be happy to recommend a few of the more honest places if you like.”

Azerick dropped a short stack of gold coins onto the highly polished cherry wood bar. “No thank you, I think this will do just fine. If you could point me to my room, I would like to get settled in. I would also like a hot bath drawn and directions to the nearest tailor.”

The innkeeper’s face became even friendlier at the sight of the gold stacked on his bar. “Of course, sir, we’d be glad to have you at the Golden Glade,” he cajoled as he swept the coins off the bar and into his hand.

An hour later, Azerick had eaten, bathed, and gotten directions to a clothier. He purchased a few well-made outfits of dark material and set off towards the bank. Now dressed in his new clothes, having discarded his tattered garb, he received a much warmer reception at the bank than he had at the inn or the fancy clothiers.

“Can I help you, sir?” an attractive woman behind a marble-topped counter that ran the entire length of the back wall asked as he approached.  

“Yes, I would like to exchange these for coin,” Azerick replied and dropped two small diamonds, an emerald, and a sapphire the size of his thumbnail onto the counter.

The woman’s face flushed in excitement at the gorgeous glittering gems that lay on the counter in front of her.

“Of course, sir, just one moment please.”

She turned and walked back to a man seated at a workbench that Azerick could see through and open door behind the long counter. The man got up and walked out to where Azerick patiently waited.

“Good day to you, sir. Let me see what you have here if I may,” he greeted and held each gem up to the jeweler’s loop he pressed into his right eye.

He held the gems up to the light and studied each one in detail with his magnifying lens. “Very nice, no inclusions, good color and clarity,” he mumbled half to himself as he studied each gem.

The jeweler and Azerick haggled on the value for a few minutes before coming to an agreement. The woman exchanged the gems for a pouch of coins once they finalized the deal.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” she asked pleasantly.

“Yes, is there anything kept for safe keeping for me? It should have been left her for me by a man named Zeb,” Azerick informed her.

“One moment, sir, and I will check the vault.”

The woman returned with a heavy pack that Azerick immediately recognized. He paid the fee for his precious books, happier now than he had felt for some time, and returned to his room at the inn. He set up his books on a shelf built into the wall of the nicely furnished room he rented, pulled one out at random and passed away the hours lost in its pages.

When Azerick looked up from his book and saw that the sun had set some time ago, he closed its pages, picked up his staff from where it was leaning in one corner, and left the inn.

He retrieved Horse from Peck who got him saddled and bridled for him and headed for the eastern gate. The large main gate was still open to traffic as a few people came and went. One of the guardsmen held up a hand as Azerick approached.

“Good evening, sir. Will you be returning tonight?” the guard asked.

“I certainly hope so,” Azerick replied.

“If you do and the main gate is locked just pound on the sally port there and we’ll let you in.”

Azerick thanked the guard for the information and rode out through the gate. He pointed Horse to the northeast where he rode until he could just make out the shape of the tall main tower of the ruins. He dismounted and tied Horse to the branch of a maple tree before proceeding on foot.

As he drew nearer the ruins, he felt a chill run up his spine and his hair stood on end. Azerick came upon the first tumbled blocks of stone that once comprised a section of the outer wall and caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his head in that direction but did not see anything there. The sorcerer walked through the breach in the wall and saw several buildings in various states of disrepair. Some stood nearly intact while others were open from one or more walls having collapsed. None had a roof any longer. The timbers that had once supported them had long ago rotted away and turned to mulch.

Another flash of movement caught his attention, but whatever it was disappeared in the fraction of a second that it took him to look that direction. Azerick picked through the ruins of what had once been a smithy. A large, rust-covered anvil still rested upon a granite block.

He left the ruins of the smithy and worked his way past various buildings, few of which left him any clues as to what purpose they once served. Azerick slowly walked towards the open maw of the central tower that looked like the large black mouth of a huge stone beast.

Another flicker of movement drew his attention away from the fallen remains of the heavy wooden doors that had once blocked the entrance to the tower. He spun about in an attempt to spot the elusive figure but saw only more stone blocks and deep shadows. Azerick turned back towards the tower entrance, released a strangled cry, and took an involuntary step back as a wispy, lucent figure hovered in the dark entranceway.

“My children, where are the children?” the plaintive voice cried out.

Azerick stood dumbfounded as his blood turned to ice water in his veins. His heart pounded in his chest and his hands shook involuntarily. The apparition looked like a woman in flowing, ancient robes. The once colorful patterns now appeared as mostly translucent, washed-out shades of grey. She floated perhaps two feet above the ground, her hair flowing about her head as if she were under water.

“Where are my children?” the specter demanded to know.

Azerick cleared his throat in an attempt to loosen his tongue. “Lady, your children are no longer here, it is time for you to go.”

The ghost moved forward a few feet towards him. “Where are the children? I must protect the children!”

“Your children are gone, Lady, as you must go. You must leave this world of the living if you are to ever find them,” Azerick told the restless spirit.

The specter appeared to think for a moment then a look of pain and rage rippled across her countenance.

“I want my children!” the spirit wailed in a voice filled with fury and torment. Its appearance twisted to match its rage. The face and eye sockets elongated, the fingers lengthened into wicked claws that she stretched towards the creature that dared to mock her pain with its warm, living blood. Her hair became a tangled writhing mass that seemed to have a life of its own.

Azerick stumbled back under the mind numbing assault of the banshee’s wail. He clapped his hands over his ears trying to block out the mind-rending pain of the dreadful shrieking. It took all his concentration to reach out to the Source and shape the spell that was his only chance at surviving the sonic attack. His nose bled and his vision began to fade under the terrible assault. With a final burst of will, Azerick enveloped himself in a blissful sphere of absolute silence.

He stumbled back to his feet, saw the banshee and staggered away. Azerick could feel the air grow colder around him as his silenced footfalls pounded against the ancient flagstones of the keep’s courtyard. He bolstered his resolve and forced himself to run faster as the air grew even colder. The air that he drew in and forced from his burdened lungs came out in thick vaporous clouds. Icy pain flared across his back as he felt the clawed fingers of the vengeful spirit rake across his living flesh.

The certainty of death if he did not escape fueled his sprint as he pumped his legs ever faster. It seemed only seconds had passed since he faced the spirit when he finally reached Horse, chomping contentedly on the grass that grew around the tree to which he was tethered. Ripping the reins from the branches, he vaulted into the saddle, spun the surprised Horse about, and put his heels into his flanks.

Azerick rode Horse at a gallop until they reached the gates of the city a few minutes later. One of the guards must have seen or heard him coming, for the sally port opened for him as he brought Horse to a walk just before the gates.

“Ho there, sir, you look like you seen a ghost!” the guardsman called out to him jovially.

“You have no idea of truth of that statement,” Azerick responded as he let out a deep breath.

He ducked his head as he rode Horse through the smaller gate and left him in the capable hands of Peck upon reaching the inn a short time later. Azerick let himself in through the small side door that opened to the stables.

He ascended the stairs to his room and fell upon the soft bed without bothering to undress. It would appear that if he was going to make the citadel his own he was going to have to fight for it. Could he fight without destroying? Azerick desperately wanted a home that was his, but could anything be built upon the ashes of destruction without eventually falling to the same fate?

Everything he was and everything he had was built upon someone’s loss, usually his own, but the lives of others as well. Not this time. Azerick would build something that meant more than what he could take by force. Somehow, he would find a way to put the spirit at peace and allow him to make his home in the tower.