Dragonlinks (6 page)

Jelindel took the knife and did a clumsy parody of his movements. ‘And then?'

‘Then you hope that whoever's cornered you thinks you know what to do next and decides to run away.' Zimak threw his head back and laughed heartily.

‘I see,' Jelindel replied through clenched teeth.

‘Seriously, Jaelin, you ought to hold your thumb on the blade, so. That shows that you're willing to cut him up a bit, but you don't want it to go right in and kill him. That would get you into real trouble. A thumb on the blade impresses people, you know?'

Jelindel nodded, then clumsily sheathed the knife. Zimak watched with professional interest, smirking.

‘I think I know your secret,' he declared as he picked up the letters and purses from the stall's writing board.

‘Secret?' quavered Jelindel, genuinely alarmed again.

‘You know nothing about knives, that's clear to see; you write like the Guildmaster of Scribes himself; you speak more languages than I've ever heard of … I'll bet you're a runaway monk from Nerrissi, or maybe a runaway novice at least.'

‘Will not say.'

‘You're probably even a virgin,' he added, ready to dodge back in case Jelindel threw a punch.

‘You go. Find more challenging person to insult. Yes?' Jelindel began to pack up the reedbond paper and quills on the writing board. Night was blotting out the colours of the sunset and a brisk wind was sweeping in from the sea.

‘Touchy, touchy, but not much touchy, eh?' quipped Zimak.

Jelindel closed her writing kit with a snap and glared at him.

‘Betting you no read or write.'

‘Who needs to?'

‘Betting you can't even count!' Zimak flinched. This had hit home. ‘Betting stallholders might find out, then they give you note saying more money in pouches than is. Everybody blaming Zimak. Zimak in stocks. Yes? Jaelin stand there, sell rotten eggs, throwing, for purpose of.'

‘You tell anyone and –'

‘
I
notice. I take one minute. Think nobody else notice too? Zimak no read! Stand out like terrier's, ah, manhood.'

‘I could beat you blindfolded!' Zimak shouted.

‘But you still not read or count when taking blindfold off!' Jelindel shouted back.

He held his hands up and lowered his head.

‘Will you keep your damnat voice down,' he pleaded quietly, then he dropped to the dusty earth and sat cross-legged, staring at the scrolls in his hands.

‘Jaelin not tell, but others guess maybe, sometime.'

‘Tch, Jaelin, I can't count, read or write, but I want to. I try looking at the scrolls, but I see nothing but wriggles and dots.'

‘Very hard if no teacher,' she said with reluctant sympathy.

‘Will you teach me?'

‘Me? I – I not teacher.'

‘So who is? Most scribes are as old and addled as Bebia. Verital Priests and monks wouldn't be bothered with the likes of me, and merchants are too busy making money. You're the first lad of my age who can read and write that I've ever met. Teach me to count, read and write and I'll show you how to fight!'

‘Me? Fight? But I'm a gir – scribe.'

‘Gir-scribe?'

‘Member of the Nerrissi Guild of Scribes.'

‘That doesn't mean you can't fight. Tch, did you know that a plain axehandle can be almost as good as a sword when used properly? Weapons can be fun, too. First thing I'll show you is a stink-pot. They're a riot.'

Jelindel shook her head. Zimak was brash but he seemed honest – and even lonely. Imagine – another honest, lonely person in the markets, she thought in wonder.

‘Fair exchange, could be,' Jelindel said slowly. ‘Sheltered life, have had – in monastery.'

‘Tch, I
knew
you were an escaped novice! A deal then, Brother Jaelin.'

‘No say Brother! No say Brother!' gasped Jelindel, but this time her alarm was a deliberate act.

‘I'll teach you to look all the bully-blades in the eye, you'll stand up proud with your head up and chest out.'

The latter was the last thing Jelindel dared to do, but she nodded approvingly. Within the hour Zimak had written out his own name for the first time in his life, and
Jelindel had learnt a rudimentary jump-dodge step that would prove invaluable in times to come.

It was dark by the time Bebia returned with some scraps of roast meat and vegetable paste in a flatbread roll. Although Jelindel nearly gagged at the taste she was hungry enough to eat it all.

‘Where do you live, Master Jaelin?' Bebia asked as he swept his stall clear of food scraps.

‘Lodging … much in need for,' Jelindel said. She'd completely forgotten about where she would stay; she had never slept beyond the walls of her father's mansion in her whole life.

Bebia shook his head in wonder. ‘A babe in the woods you are, young Jaelin. Here,' he said kindly, ‘unroll this blanket and spread it under the writing board. Our nights are warmer than in Nerrissi. You will be comfortable sleeping here.'

‘Is kind, you are,' Jelindel said, almost fainting with relief and gratitude.

Jelindel was proud of herself. The market was a rough place, but she had survived a day and found food, lodgings and honest employment. Jeme had always insisted that the place was alive with cutpurses and cheats, yet kindness and honesty were traded there too.

She glanced skyward. Blanchemoon and Specmoon hung low over the governor's palace, a crescent and a bright dot in the sky. Only now did the events of the past day catch up and swarm through her mind like a horde of scorpions.

As she settled down beneath the writing board of Bebia's stall, Jelindel's churning stomach reminded her of her supper. Two nights before she had eaten blackfowl
casserole on a bed of scented rice and drunk pale violet porgava juice from distant Passendof, pretending it was wine and making toasts with her sisters. She had talked with them about what Princess Lovkie was wearing at court, and of how bravely the champ ions had fought in the harvest tournament for no more than a kiss on her royal hand.

The thought that she had not said goodnight to her family kept returning to torture her. She had been too keen to slip away into the garden for the eclipse of Reculemoon. Now they were all dead and she had not said goodbye. Nor had she said that she loved them since … Jelindel tried to think when she had told any of her family how much she loved them. Her younger sister, yes, she had told her a few days before, but the rest? Hard as she tried, the memories would not come forward.

Long-delayed tears began to trickle now, and Jelindel cried silently for a long time in the subtropical warmth of the D'loom night. Her survival alone for even the one day had been a triumph of resourcefulness and luck, yet at that hour she felt herself the most unlucky, lonely person in the entire Kingdom of Skelt.

Her hands wandered to the bound braid of hair at the back of her head. She could not wear a cap all the time, and her amber hair was suspiciously long. Unbound, it reached past her knees, after all. She could sell it, but that would attract attention and trouble. Jelindel took out her knife, unpinned her plait and cut it at shoulder length. Some Skeltian boys of her age wore their hair in a single shoulder-length plait interwoven with leather thonging. It did not take her long to style her remaining hair in that fashion.

Jelindel walked across to where the market's rubbish of the day was being burned, and tossed the severed length of plait into the flames. She kept the five amberwood pins that had held it up. They were the only obviously feminine possessions left to her in the entire world. After staying long enough to see the hair consumed she returned to her blanket beneath the writing board. She expected the horrors of the night before to return as soon as she lay down, but this time sleep crashed over her and washed her away like a stormsurge.

A
chill, vicious wind lashed across Dragonfrost, a vast basin of red sand and granite bordered by the Algon Mountains and the Garrical Mountains. Even though Dragonfrost was not far from the tropics, cold air from the mountains and a near-permanent cloud cover made the place a chill, desolate tract of sand that nobody would cross willingly.

The two men who braved the cold, howling wind were riding stou t campaign horses, and were muffled against the stinging sand that was flung against them relentlessly. They had ridden through the dusty maelstrom for some days now, and at night they dug trenches in the cold, sandy ground to get sufficient shelter to sleep. The unceasing wind prevented any attempt at pitching a tent or building a fire. Instead they tied their tents about their horses, to give the animals some relief from the stinging sand at night as they munched chaff from their feedbags.

Each day it was the same. No sooner was the gloom lightening with dawn than the taller, older man began packing to be underway again. He continually muttered about their mission and the positions of stars that were not visible through the clouds.

Dragonfrost was marked on maps as just a vast basin of crumbling rock and sand, but now the two travellers knew better than the cartographers. There were huge fissures to be skirted, jumbles of rocks to walk the horses over, and sand so soft and fluid that it seemed alive underfoot.

Not once had they seen another living being. It seemed to Daretor, a young warrior and veteran of Lokribar's Hamarian campaign, that they were adrift, alone in an infinite, dry, red sea, destined never to see trees or rivers again.

At last Daretor discerned the ragged outline of the Garrical Mountains ahead of them. Had he been in different company he would have cheered at the top of his lungs, but a subtly morbid mood had taken hold of him since his meeting with Jabez Thull, his travelling companion.

The old but strong, lean man seemingly had no past, and he was oddly well-informed. Daretor wondered how, without being one of the rich and powerful, he was even knowledgeable about the movements of the Skelt King's secret courtesan. Magic, too, featured in his lined and weathered face. Daretor recognised the signs: fine, well-healed clawmarks from a small, seven-fingered hand, a scar below his jaw that was bright blue, an arrogant confidence that intimidated even noblemen, and strength that one would not expect in a man of his age.

Thull had released Daretor from the dungeons in
Tol after he had been there for a week. They were unlit, dank and alive with vermin. Most who were sent in never emerged again, and rats were considered a delicacy by those long-term inmates. Daretor had been thrown in there among Skelt's worst felons on charges of rioting and vandalism, charges that should have earned him no more than a day in the stocks. After a week Jabez Thull had mysteriously appeared and granted him a pardon signed by the Preceptor himself.

It was freedom, but only of a sort. What would the price be? Daretor was a most promising warrior, in fact he had won the Tol marathon fighting carnival for 2127. He had woken in a cell after the celebrations, with a terrible hangover and little memory of his offences.

He had become fettered to … what? A mage? He owed the man a bond and that bond took a strange form. Its discharge was deemed to be helping Thull attack a poorly guarded courtesan's caravan in the Algon Mountains of Baltoria and stealing a solitary link of chainmail. That had been easy enough, but what now? Thull was old and probably a mage, and old mages often trained young protégés as Adepts. Daretor was not sure if he liked the prospect, but he had decided to follow Thull even after his discharge – without making any commitments.

Daretor cautiously opened his fingers and fed his eyes upon the link, a small, insignificant-looking circle of metal that sat in the palm of his hand and soaked up heat. It was neither gold nor silver, yet it had a sheen, a lustre that should have belonged to a precious metal. Its colour was that of polished silver, yet the highlights shone with an unearthly orange tinge. Under brighter skies he could make out the finest of writing on it, writing that flashed
tiny sparkles of rainbow colours. Thull had insisted that he keep guard over the link. It was an odd gesture of trust that still puzzled Daretor.

Again he wondered at its icy touch. Clutched in his hand it should have been warm, yet its coldness chilled his hand as if he were holding a lump of ice.

It had importance, but for the life of him Daretor could not fathom it. ‘A rare, ensorcelled thing, and such things have value,' he said to himself beneath the roaring wind.

Daretor turned in the saddle to see Thull smiling. Had his ears been keen enough to hear the whispered words above such a wind? Daretor clenched his fist around the link. There was no trusting the man, yet he had trusted Daretor with the link. It could be worn as a ring, Thull had suggested, but Daretor kept it in a pouch. Perhaps it was his right to wear it. The pair of them had equal chances to seize it against six of the King's guards-men, but Daretor had snatched it from its ornate case first.