The Barrow (25 page)

Gilgwyr grabbed up a lantern and led Stjepan and Erim back through dark corridors and empty halls into a chamber packed with casks and barrels and boxes under a low vaulted ceiling. This wing of the compound clearly wasn't used much, and the room was dark, lit only by the flickering light of several small braziers. Erim could barely make out an old man sitting behind a table by himself; he was solemnly preparing a Book of Dooms, shuffling the deck of cards ritualistically. His hair and bushy eyebrows and beard were still dark, almost the same blue-black as his robes, and Erim immediately thought that he must dye his hair, because the lines in his face seemed to mark him as a man whose hair should be gray or white, if he still had any hair at all. Deep lines were visible at the edges of his mouth, creased into his cheeks, under the bags of his crow-footed eyes. He was dressed in dark blue-black robes, the hood thrown back from his head, with flashes of gold jewelry and amulets at his wrists and around his collar, and gold rings were woven into his beard.

This
, Erim thought,
must be the enchanter Leigh that I've heard so little about
.

Leigh placed a card down on the table in front of him; it was The Sphinx, the card numbered with an XV. It showed a winged sphinx—a chimera with the body of a lion, the upper torso and head of a beautiful woman, and the wings of a vulture—perched upon an anvil and holding the chains of a bound and naked couple. “The Sphinx . . . the catalyst of desire, the voice of deceit and influence. Hello, old friend,” Leigh said quietly as if to himself, and then raised his voice to a bizarre loud singsong in greeting to them as they approached. “I . . . have . . . been . . .
wait
. . . ing!” Stjepan started to explain but Leigh held his hand up. “Spare me,” the enchanter snorted. “I've had a long journey and, well, as you know I'm really not supposed to be in the city, so I shouldn't show my face, at least not where I might be recognized. Or so Gilgwyr keeps telling me. I'm quite convinced the city wouldn't care if I walked down the street naked. But as it is, I'm stuck hiding back here by myself.”

“Then apologies, Magister,” said Stjepan with a short bow. “I hope your journey will prove worth it. It is good to see you outside of your tower, if you do not mind me saying so.”

“I do mind, but it was always kind of you to visit, so I won't hold it against you, Black-Heart,” said Leigh with a smile, but for some reason Erim didn't believe him.

Stjepan gave a short bow. He turned to Gilgwyr. “So we have the map, and the enchanter. Now we need a new crew. Any word on someone to replace Guilford and his lot?”

“No,” Gilgwyr sighed. “You say you're going after a wizard's barrow and that tends to dry up the available talent.”

“I would imagine all but the greedy and the desperate,” said Stjepan. “Or the insane.”

“The
criminally
insane,” corrected Leigh.

“Or just the flat-out stupid, who don't know any better,” said Erim quietly. She felt a pang of guilt, remembering the sudden eagerness in Guilford when he had realized what Stjepan and Harvald were after.
And which was poor Guilford?
she wondered.
Which are we?

“Yes, well . . . add to that the fact that news that you are on the Guild's blacklist has spread far and wide throughout the city, and replacing Guilford here in Therapoli has become, I'm afraid, an impossible task,” said Gilgwyr.

“Did you ask Jonas and his boys?” Stjepan asked.

“I did, but they were already committed to another job. Or so they said,” Gilgwyr replied with a rueful smile.

Stjepan shrugged. “Jonas's a smart man,” he said. “How about Tyrius and his Hooded Men?”

“Broke up last month. You were out of town,” Gilgwyr said apologetically.

“The Temple Street Irregulars?”

“In jail, the lot of them,” said Gilgwyr. “Please believe me, I asked any independent crew of sufficient quality, and some of insufficient. Pellas the Quick, Mother Silva, Jon Deering, Rob Asprin, the Bastards of Baker Street, Rafaelas Huelas, Jon Galbroke, Fulric Fingers, the East End Promenaders, Myrad's Mad Dogs, Corbin of Melos . . .” As Gilgwyr reeled off his names, Leigh flipped over several more cards, almost casually: the Knave of Swords, but reversed, depicting a dangerous looking man in armor wearing a mask and bearing a sword; the Knight of Swords, depicting a gallant knight in shining armor raising his sword; the Knave of Coins, depicting a masked man wielding a dagger and holding a coin in the palm of one hand; the Knave of Cups, reversed, depicting a masked priest holding a dagger in one hand and a chalice in the other. That last card he tried to hide before anyone could see it, but Erim saw it disappear up his sleeve, and she frowned, wondering what the card meant.

Finally Stjepan held up his hand and sourly waved off the recital.

“. . . yes, well, anyway, everyone's either said no or they're not available,” Gilgwyr said, finishing with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Stjepan said sourly.

“Knaves, knights, and more knaves . . . don't worry, we'll have a crew,” Leigh breathed, looking at the cards dealt onto the table in front of him.

“The predictions of the Book of Dooms aside, I might have to come with you this time,” Gilgwyr said. “We'll have to find a crew on the road somewhere.”

“And leave this cozy place? That's a surprise, but I get it; this is a big one, if the map is real,” Stjepan said with a sharp laugh.

“
If?
I came a long way because of this map. It's not translated yet?” Leigh asked.

Stjepan stared at him for a long moment. “Harvald specifically asked me not to translate the map until you were present. All I got was a glimpse of it in the shrine. Looked real enough. Harvald has it; I let him keep it,” Stjepan said, his frown deepening.

Gilgwyr looked a bit surprised and worried. “He was supposed to be here two hours ago, Stjepan,” said Gilgwyr. “He sent a message saying that he was going to try to get here early to talk to Leigh, but I hadn't really worried about it; I mean, you know Harvald, he's always late . . .”

They all looked at each other.

“What if he's ditching the lot of us? What if he's trying to translate it all by himself?” Erim finally asked.

Stjepan suddenly looked alarmed. “Shit. I think I know where he is,” he said, and an instant later he was grabbing up a lantern and rushing out of the room, Erim following closely behind. Gilgwyr stood there for a moment, looking after them bemusedly.

Leigh returned to staring at his cards, tsking to himself. “So much for honor among thieves,” he said.

Gilgwyr shouted after them: “Don't worry. Harvald won't let us down. We're partners. A veritable
band of brothers!
”

Leigh placed another card down; it was The Hanged Man, reversed, numbered XII. The card showed a man suspended by one foot by a rope from a crossbar, which rested upon two leafless trees. His free leg was crossed behind him, and he wore red and white clothes; a golden halo shown about his head, and from his coin purse came a shower of golden coins. Harvald looked at the card and did a double take. “Shit, I'm missing the show!” he groaned with a sudden start, and then he hurried from the room.

Leigh smiled to himself, alone again in the semi-dark. “A magician seeking answers . . .” he whispered, softly stroking the cards on the table before him.

Harvald muttered to himself, trying to voice the incomprehensible language of the old Mael Kings as his finger underlined an arcane symbol. He flipped through the pages of the
Libra di historum Manonesian
almost randomly, and then through
On the Languages of the Mael Kings
, and stopped on a cryptic reference.
Someone is breathing heavily
, he thought idly, and then he realized it was himself. He felt tired, so unbelievably tired, like the fatigue had set into his very bones, as he sat looking at pages of indecipherable text, his vision blurring, his eyes tearing up. The panic and fear was eating through him now, making it almost impossible to think. His hands traced the arcane symbols of the map spread out across the desktop before him.
So close. So close
.

A drop of blood fell onto the table, and then another, and then a piece of flesh dropped on a symbol on the map. Harvald stared at it blankly, wondering what it was.

His hand moved upon his erect member as he pressed his eye to the hole in the floor, hunching his hips, his teeth biting down on his lip to prevent himself from groaning. He did not think that she could be as beautiful as he remembered her in his dreams, and yet there she was, even more beautiful than ever.

Annwyn lay in a tub of steaming water, her body partly obscured by flower petals, as some of her handmaidens moved about the room, tidying and talking softly. She had never been as afraid of water as some of her kin, and she found that lying in the hot bath was often the only thing that could get her body to relax. Being in that house the whole day was like being trapped in amber, and her body would feel stiff and rusted by the end of the day, as though the slightest pressure would make her break. Without the bath to help her relax, sleep was almost impossible.

Annwyn appeared lost in thought but her eyes drifted up to the ceiling, and then almost deliberately toward a small hole that had been cut there, and then—

He pulled back from the peephole with a sudden start and slid the cover closed, wincing in the dark and praying that he hadn't made any noise. Had he imagined it? Did she know about the peephole? He could have sworn she had looked right at him . . .