Authors: Victor Gischler
Nard’s going to be pissed when he finds his money missing
.
No, Alem realized. He wouldn’t. Nard was dead. He was old but in good health and they would have shoved a sword into his hand and sent him to the wall. He would be dead like so many others.
Alem bashed the strongbox against the iron stove until he sprang the cheap lock. He spilled the coins out onto the cot and counted them. Fourteen copper coins, but the real score was the two silver pieces. From his belt he took his small leather purse, which contained only a single copper, one he’d been hoarding for months. He added the coins from the strongbox and retied the purse tightly to his belt.
It struck him that he was making a life decision. This would be a pivotal point in his very small, very predictable existence. First, he’d need to live through the next twenty minutes. The clang of crossing swords no longer reached him from the street, but people were fighting and dying beyond the walls of the stable.
He remembered the Perranese captain. He’d broken his neck.
They’re dying in here too
.
So in the unlikely event he lived to the end of the day, it would be only the beginning. Where would he go? How would he live? He had no answers. If he wanted to live, he’d have to leave behind everything he’d ever known.
He grabbed Nard’s spare riding cloak from the peg near the door. It was ugly and patched but thick and warm. It smelled like Nard’s pipe tobacco.
Alem walked out of Nard’s room and froze. Another Perranese warrior, his back to Alem, stood in full armor, holding a sword. Alem’s stomach lurched. He wouldn’t even make it out of the stable. He’d spent his life here. Now he would die here.
The man in the armor turned. Tosh’s face grinned at him from under the broad helm. “I got an idea.”
Rina stepped out of the tub. As soon as she hit the cold air, her skin broke out in gooseflesh. She stood dripping on the cold stone floor of the chamber. The mage had his back to her, pulling a leather-bound book off a low shelf along with a collection of arcane implements Rina didn’t recognize.
She began to shiver. “I’m wet.”
He glanced at her with his good eye. “You can’t use a towel. Your skin must be perfectly clean, and I won’t risk lint or stray threads. Stand near the fire, but not too close. You can’t sweat either.”
She stood just close enough to the brazier to feel the warmth, beads of water tickling as they rolled down her skin. At first she’d felt self-conscious standing naked in front of the old man, but he was obviously uninterested. The mage bent over one of his old books, squinting at the magical writing.
Her skin warmed, and she took a step back from the fire. She watched him pull a chair up next to a small table. He laid out various small objects she didn’t recognize, plus a small vase of clear glass, dark liquid within. He lined up other materials like he was preparing to cook some obscure recipe.
He is a mage, after all
.
That’s what they do, I guess; potions and so on
. And it struck her suddenly that this old man could be up to anything. She didn’t even know his name.
She turned to dry her other side. She couldn’t see him now, and that somehow unnerved her. The chamber was dark, the brazier having burned low.
She cleared her throat. “What are you doing?”
He made a low noise in his throat, dislodging a wad of phlegm. “What do you know of magic?”
Rina considered a moment. There were stories, of course. Tales of magic splitting oceans in two, dark wizards bringing down the stars to destroy a city, seductive sorceresses twisting kings into knots with charms dripping from honeyed tongues. But they were only stories, and which sprang from some grain of truth and which were utter fancy she couldn’t say.
“Nothing,” Rina said. “I don’t know anything about magic.”
The old man snorted. “Then how shall I explain? Where to start?”
“The fire to warm the bath,” she said quickly. “You lit it from across the room. That was magic, yes?”
“Yes, okay. We’ll start there. What did you see?”
“You held out your hand,” Rina said. “And the fire sprang to life.”
A low chuckle. “I’m a mage, not one of the gods. What did you see? Details, please. The demons are ever in the details.”
She closed her eyes, replayed the scene in her mind. “You released some kind of powder.”
“And?”
“Words,” Rina said. “They sounded clear but then sped by quickly. I can’t remember any of them.”
“It takes discipline to hold those words in your mind, duchess. It can get crowded between your ears. A journeyman wizard can hold four or five spells. More than that and the brain gets muddled, starts hearing voices that aren’t real. A master might hold eight or ten. They say the Blue Wizard of The Lakes held more than a dozen, all chattering and running around in his brain. More than one mage has lost his mind trying to cram in too many. Those spells want
out
. It takes a strong mind to keep them
in
.”
Rina’s back grew hot, and she stepped away from the fire. “How many can your mind hold?”
The old man made a noncommittal noise. A pause. “Not enough. Never enough to make a difference.” He coughed and something rattled in his chest. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now. I’m an old man in a cave. I’ll give you the last of my magic, Duchess. Come. You’re dry now.”
She turned and saw him sitting hunched and gray in the chair. He looked bad, skin sallow and slick, dark circles under his eyes. He was deteriorating rapidly. The shock must have shown on Rina’s face.
“I told you I was keeping the sickness at bay,” he said. “Now that I’m no longer fighting it, it’s come rushing in, making up for lost time. I—” He coughed again, stronger this time, wracking his whole body.
“Never mind.” He gestured her forward. “Come closer. Within arm’s reach.”
As she approached, she glanced at the little table next to his chair. He’d laid out the spell book alongside a line of thin, metal instruments. Some looked pointy, and a flutter of nerves twisted Rina’s stomach.
“Damn you, what is
that?”
Anger flared in his good eye. He rubbed a finger along the shallow gash in her side, and Rina winced. “This wound is fresh.”
“During the escape,” she said.
“Your skin needs to be completely clean and blemish free.” The irritation was plain in his voice.
“I didn’t get myself slashed just to annoy you, okay?” It wasn’t a deep wound, but it
hurt
.
“Shut up, girl. I’m thinking.”
She opened her mouth to shoot something back at him, closed it again. Maybe she was learning.
“Yes, yes, that might work to our advantage after all.” He chuckled dryly, which turned into another fit of wracking coughs.
He composed himself, stood. “Wait here.” He went to the shelf and returned with a fat jar the size of a teacup, seated himself again.
“Turn around.”
She turned.
A second later she felt his hand slather something on the wound, like goose grease. Immediately, a warmth spread out from the wound, the hot sting of the sword-gash fading.
“A healing balm,” the mage told her.
She thought about the little vial Kork had tossed her during the rescue. “Is it the same as the healing elixirs, the kind you drink?”
“Most of the same ingredients, yes. But elixirs work fast. The balm works slowly, more appropriate for what I have in mind. I’m getting a little inventive. This will either work out very well for you or ruin the entire process. We’ll see, I suppose. Now kneel.”
“Kneel?”
“I need to work on your back and shoulders, and be damned if I’m going to stand for the whole thing. I’m too old, and this will take some time. Kneel.”
She knelt. The rough, stone floor dug into her knees, but she kept still, heard him flipping pages in the book behind her. “You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do.”
“I’m going to give you a tattoo.”
She frowned. “You mean like sailors have?” She’d seen them before, fanciful illustrations of mermaids and sea dragons.
“Yes,” the old man said. “And no.”
Yeah, that’s informative
.
“The principle is the same,” he said. “But crassly decorating yourself is not the goal.”
“I … I don’t know if I want a tattoo,” Rina said.
The old mage sighed extravagantly. “You arrived here, orphaned, with nothing but the rags on your back. Foreigners have overrun your land, and where you go from here is anyone’s guess. I have doomed myself merely discussing this with you. What say we throw caution to the wind and get a tattoo today, Duchess, or do you have better offers?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “How is it done?”
“Needles,” he said. “To insert the ink under the skin. Although we’ll be using quite a bit more than ink, I can assure you.”
Needles
? “Will it—” She swallowed. “Will it hurt?”
A pause too long for comfort. “Yes. Very much.”
At a distance, the disguise worked. A Perranese warrior on one horse, leading a captive on another.
Up close was a different story.
Tosh didn’t have the narrow eyes or the saffron skin of the Perranese, but he tried to sit straight and haughty in the saddle. Perranese foot patrols who spotted them down side streets merely saluted from a distance and kept going. Alem rode with his wrists together in front of him, rope wrapped around loosely to give the appearance they were bound. When Perranese soldiers looked like they might come too close, Tosh would veer off down another path. In this way, they zigzagged toward the city gate, often turning in the opposite direction and having to circle around again.
Snow fell. It was cold.
Alem leaned forward in his saddle to speak low to Tosh ahead of him. “This is taking forever.”
Tosh frowned back at him. “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”
Alem did not have a better idea.
The plan, as Alem understood it, was to use the disguise to make it to one of the city gates and then do … something. Thinking about it now, in the battle-torn streets of Klaar, Alem realized it was a completely and utterly
terrible
plan. He supposed they’d figured to sneak through the gate in some way, but Alem couldn’t imagine how. Occasionally, he’d spot a citizen of Klaar darting furtively among the rubble, but most of the city’s population was in hiding. Most members of the army or militia were dead. Three times, they came across a scattering of bodies where the men of Klaar had turned to make a stand only to be cut down by the swarming invaders.
They reined in the horses under the tattered awning at the entrance of a burned-out shop, the shadows offering some slight concealment and cover from the snow. Alem almost didn’t recognize that he was at the wide square just inside the city’s front gate. On any normal day, the square would be filled with carts and stands, peddlers hawking wares, the healthy bustle of commerce.
Now the stands and carts had been cleared away so the Perranese army could use the square as a staging area. A steady line of troops trudged in through the open front gate. Many pulled carts piled with enough goods and supplies to suggest a long stay. Perranese troops also lead occasional groups of captured Klaarians. Alem didn’t recognize any of them. Maybe they’d been gathered from the low-lying villages.
Alem felt a stab of concern for his grandmother. He hoped the Perranese would leave an obviously harmless old woman alone, but he couldn’t quite convince himself. The invaders didn’t quite seem evil, but they did go about their business with a ruthless efficiency. If they’d been ordered to clear the villages, Alem doubted they would make exceptions.
“Are we just going to sit here until they notice us?” Alem whispered.
“We’re waiting,” Tosh said.
“For what?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Tosh said. “Just be ready to ride like the blazes if I give the signal.
Can
you ride?”
“I can ride. Don’t worry about me.” Alem had spent all his life around horses. When on a hunt, invariably some fat noble’s ass would get saddle sore, and Alem would be picked to ride the horse back to the stable. He always took the long way back, riding the forest and mountain trails of Klaar. Yes, he could ride. He could ride like the bloody wind.
They waited.
Ten minutes became twenty and then half an hour. The square appeared to be controlled by a bull of a Perranese sergeant, head bald except for a glossy black topknot that swung like a whip whenever he turned his head to shout at another group of men. If the men marched through the front gate too slowly, he shouted at them. Too fast, and he shouted at them. If he needed them to halt so a troop column could march past, he shouted at them. Nobody in the Perranese army seemed to be doing anything exactly to his satisfaction.
So when a cart piled high with furs (no doubt confiscated from the outlying trapper villages) lost a wheel, and the cart tipped directly in front of the city gate, the sergeant shouted with redoubled ire at the culprits. He stormed toward the cart, gesticulating and yelling. Alem didn’t need to speak the language to understand that blocking the flow of traffic into and out of the city gate was the single thing most likely to inflame the sergeant’s fury.
At the sergeant’s angry gestures, the Perranese guards who’d been holding spears and standing at attention on either side of the gate bolted from their posts to assist in righting the cart. All of their backs were to Alem and Tosh.
“Now!” Tosh spurred his mount forward.
“What?”
Alem hesitated only a split second, digging his heels into the gelding’s side, the horse leaping after Tosh.
In a flash, Alem saw what Tosh was doing. The broken-down cart might be the only distraction they were going to get, and the guards had left the gate. There was a gap just big enough beside the damaged cart for a single horse and rider to fit through.
The gelding was a better horse than the fat mare Tosh had selected, and Alem passed them within a second. The thundering hooves on the square’s cobblestones drew the attention of the Perranese, who turned as one to gawk. Alem passed stunned expressions in a blur as he shot though the narrow gap and beyond.