The Silver Pear (15 page)

T
hey asked
an old woman at the gate where they could find Garth and she directed them to an inn called The Hole.

Soren didn’t like the look of it.

It had a seedy air and was set back from the more respectable houses and wide roads, down a narrow alley. The high buildings on either side blocked out the light and created lots of dark places.

There was a well just outside the door, perhaps left over from when Jerat had been a smaller village, before it had been swallowed up in the general expansion of the town.

It was obviously the reason for the inn’s name, and like its namesake, it looked run down and smelled dank.

Soren opened the door and Miri stepped over the threshold with him.

The room was dark and smoky. A fire crackled in a massive fireplace, and it turned the light coming in through the lead-pane windows a hazy blue as it puffed out smoke.

The smell of spilled ale and sweaty bodies was heavy in the air, and Mirabelle stopped just inside the door and kept her hand on it to hold it open.

He smiled at her. “Not used to village inns?”

She shook her head. “No great loss, I’m forced to say.”

Soren approached a thin, wiry man sitting at the closest table. “Garth here?”

The man gave a nod, jerked his head toward the back of the room.

Mirabelle left the door open behind her and stepped up beside him. It seemed to him, even in the gloom, she glowed.

It was why he didn’t pay attention to how intently the men in the room were staring at them as they moved toward the back. If he’d been them, Soren knew he’d have been staring at Miri, too.

But when they got to the last table, tucked behind a thick wooden support, and Garth wasn’t there, Soren turned slowly, his hand sliding into his pocket to touch the moonstone.

The room had changed.

What had been a disparate collection of men, bent over tables and deep in conversation, had become something else all together.

A mob.

Focused on them.

One man slowly scraped back his chair, and stood. “Garth never said nothing about a woman.”

There was some low muttering.

“Perhaps you can direct us to his house?” Mirabelle asked. “As he’s not here.”

Soren didn’t know if she didn’t understand the situation, or was simply hoping what her eyes were telling her was wrong.

There was silence. The first true silence since they’d stepped through the door, as if Miri’s words made them look at her properly for the first time.

“I never was one to look a gift horse in the mouth,” another man said. He lifted his heavy, stocky frame up from his chair. “Take out the man, take the woman. Why not?”

Mirabelle looked at him coldly. “Did you just threaten to do my friend and me harm?”

Soren glanced at her, saw her fingers were sparking. He took hold of the moonstone, but didn’t close his fist around it quite yet.

“Is this on Garth’s instructions?” She sounded genuinely interested.

“I have a feeling it is.” The old woman at the gate must have had orders to send anyone who asked after Garth here, and Garth had organized a very warm welcome for whoever turned up looking for him.

The question was, was he specifically thinking of them, or was it Travis and his thugs or someone else he thought he needed protection against?

“That’s what I think, too.” Miri looked at him sidelong, and a shiver of blue went down her staff.

He blinked. That hadn’t happened before.

From a table just in front of them, a man exploded out of his seat, grabbed Mirabelle, spun her round and held her against his chest, hand around her throat.

He had gray bristles on a dark-skinned face, a wiry build and a look of defiance in his eyes.

Soren had been a knight and a woodcutter, but for the last year he’d been nothing short of a one man army, intent on destruction.

He let that show, the side Mirabelle seemed to ease and soften, but which was far from gone.

The man swallowed hard, tightened his grip, and Soren pounced.

Mid-leap he closed his hand around the moonstone, and ducked behind the man, hitting him with all his strength on the side of his head.

The man howled and let Miri go.

It set them all off. They had a taste for a fight, and they were determined to get one, even if there was only one of him, and he had vanished.

He suddenly realized it made Miri the only target, so he let go of the stone again, and stepped in front of her. His sudden appearance gave everyone a moment’s shock, but only a moment.

While he swung and blocked as a wave of bodies and fists slammed into him, he thought he heard someone shout: “Stop!”

No-one responded, and Soren had taken a fist to the gut, so he couldn’t laugh at the notion that anyone was going to stop now.

“The man said stop.” Mirabelle spoke from behind him with a bite to her voice, but not loudly.

Everyone stopped.

Froze, more like, exactly in place.

Soren found he was able to shake the paralysis off immediately, and saw Garth, red-faced, panting, and Jon just behind him, standing in the doorway.

“Your friends planned to hurt or kill Soren, and take me.” Miri stared at Garth coldly across the silent room, and blue sparkled overhead.

Garth went white. “I never thought . . .” He turned slowly, taking in the whole room.

“This is your thanks for Miri saving you?” Soren asked, and was surprised his voice shook.

“He thought she was dead.” Jon spoke up. “We heard the soldiers talking about it while we were hiding from them in the forest. How she’d been struck down by Andrei Wolfsblood.”

Miri seemed to flinch at hearing the name of the sorcerer who’d attacked, and Soren stored it away to ask her about later.

“So who did you think would be after you?” Soren leaned against the wall casually, but his fists where tight at his sides.

“William. Travis.” Garth shrugged. “It was just insurance.”

“Why did Sam run when he saw us, then?” Miri twirled a hand, and those who were standing at the edges, and hadn’t gotten involved, were suddenly free. They jostled Garth and Jon in their run for the door.

Garth frowned. “You saw Sam? When?”

“In the forest on our way here. Not half an hour ago.” Soren narrowed his eyes. “You’re telling us he didn’t let you know?”

Garth blew out a breath. “I can see how you’d think this was planned for you if Sam saw you and ran. But the only thing I can think of is he’s worried about us taking . . .” He went quiet.

“Yes.” Miri circled the man who had threatened his death and her rape, and then looked back at the man who’d grabbed her. “About my property.”

Soren remembered the look she’d had in Halakan dungeon, when Garth had told her William was coming with a new sorcerer. She looked the same way now. Truly angry.

Garth collapsed onto a chair. Lifted a shaking hand to his head. “I knew you were a sorcerer when you bespelled the dungeon as we left. And when I found . . . your property, I was only coming back to help, I swear it. I don’t know what I would have done with it if I thought you were alive, but as it was, we thought you were dead.”

Soren believed him, but it still didn’t explain Sam’s reaction.

“The men attacking you, most of them are friends of ours. I didn’t think they could be as stupid as this, but I did ask them to take care of any stranger who came looking for us, so this is my fault, not theirs.” Garth was careful not to ask Miri to release them directly.

Soren turned to her, wondering what she would do.

She waved her hand again, and everyone but the man who’d openly threatened them and the man who grabbed her was released.

Most of them stumbled forward, then lifted their hands in a sign of truce. Sidled toward the wall and then out.

Jon cuffed a few on the head as they moved past him.

“I have what you’re looking for at my house.” Garth stood, and indicated the door.

Miri nodded and started forward, and Jon fidgeted uncomfortably.

“What are you going to do with them?” He jerked his head at the two she’d left frozen.

Miri glanced back. “Nothing.”

Garth gaped at her. “You’re just going to leave them like that?”

“That one openly planned to ’take’ me. That one grabbed me.” She shuddered. “Why should I do anything?”

Even though they were frozen in place, Soren thought both men radiated panic as she spoke.

She walked out the door.

“Hey!” The wiry man who’d been at the entrance when they’d first arrived, the one who’d lied about Garth being deeper in the room, stepped after her, and Soren wondered if he understood the error of leaving Soren at his back. “You can’t leave them like that. What am I supposed to do with them?”

Miri turned, and the man stumbled to a halt. “I don’t like liars. I don’t like innkeepers who let women be threatened and grabbed in their establishments.”

Garth and the innkeeper exchanged a look, and then Garth carried on, and Miri followed him.

The innkeeper muttered something under his breath, and Soren tapped him on the shoulder. “She’s not the one you need to worry about.” He kept his voice deliberately low. “And you will talk about her with respect.”

The look the innkeeper gave him as he brushed past was wide-eyed.

When he was halfway down the street, he heard the shout of relief as Miri released the two men who’d threatened her.

He turned to face the door as they ran out. Let them see what was on his mind.

They backed away, pressed up against the inn.

Then Soren spun and put on a bit of extra speed to catch up with Miri. Halfway there he realized he was whistling cheerfully under his breath.

The silver pear was almost back in their hands.

“
I
t’s gone
.” Garth scooped everything in his small chest out onto the table, and looked, horrified, into the empty wooden casket.

Jon leaned over his shoulder, frowning.

Miri could feel her anger and despair rising, feel the sky magic, just a reach away, and Jon was suddenly on his knees in front of her.

“Garth was doing you a favor. I swear it. I
swear
.” He spoke directly to her, eyes stricken. “He went back to help you, the only one who did, but then me ’n’ Sam realized and went back, too. We thought you were dead.”

“And now you know I’m not.” Miri pushed off the wall, and he bowed his head.

“It was here this morning. I don’t know where it’s gone.” Garth spoke tonelessly.

“So where would Sam take it, and why?” Soren asked, his voice cold and hard, and Miri blinked.

Of course. Sam had taken it. It would explain why he’d run when he’d seen them.

She swallowed back her anger. She should have known finding the silver pear wouldn’t be that easy.

She was still reeling from what had happened at the inn. Growing up, she’d managed a lot of magic most sorcerers couldn’t do, but had seldom dabbled in things they did all the time.

It had frustrated, and then pleased, her father. Bespelling Soren and the guards at William’s stronghold had been the first time she’d tried a spell sorcerers considered a normal exercising of their power. And today, holding a roomful of men at bay—her father would have been thrilled.

He wouldn’t have cared why she’d done it, the fear that had risen in her at their grabbing hands, their pounding fists, anger at the harm they were doing to Soren, and planned to do to her—she rubbed a shaking hand down her side. He’d have hailed it as a clear mark of her power.

Thirty men, all frozen.

And here she was, feeling a little guilty about it, but not guilty enough to forgo the small glow of satisfaction at their fear of her, of turning it around and giving them a taste of what it was like.

That she hadn’t done much, much worse to the men would have confused her father, but he’d have been happy she’d at least thought about vengeance.

“Sam.” Garth was suddenly grim. He slammed the lid of the chest shut. “The little bastard.”

“Who would he sell it to here?” Soren looked out the window of Garth’s small, steep-roofed house. “When we saw him this morning, he was clearly looking for someone. Whistling to let them know he was there. It was deep in the Great Forest, though, and I doubt anyone would have chosen to meet there. He may have taken the wrong path by mistake.”

Garth shook his head. “He only got to Jerat with us two days ago, he doesn’t know anyone to sell it to.”

“Oh, I think Sam could find the right person to sell it to,” Soren said, voice dry.

Joe sighed in agreement as he got back to his feet. “He’s a piece of work, that one. But it’s ’cause he’s had to be, growing up rough.” He looked across at her, and Miri could see in his face that he was trying to explain to her, hoping she’d go easy on Sam when he came back.

Because where else could he go?

“There’s a place near the edge of the forest. I saw him there yesterday, hanging around, and wondered what he was up to. Got him to come home, although it was clear he didn’t want to.” Garth rubbed the lid of the chest absently.

“Meeting someone who wanted to buy it?” Soren asked, and Garth gave a reluctant nod.

“Could well be. Not that I knew that then. Thought maybe he’d met a girl in the village, and I didn’t want any trouble with anyone. I’ve got to live here, and I didn’t want an angry father at my door.”

Jon said nothing, but Miri saw him shake his head, and close his eyes.

“Well then, let’s go.” Soren looked out the window one last time, angling so it would be difficult for anyone approaching the cottage to see him. Eventually he gave a nod and Garth opened the door and they all followed him out.

He went right, through a small copse of trees and then down into a shallow dip which had reeds growing as high as his head. The path looped to the left, and suddenly they were on a bank of short green grass with a small pond beyond.

Sam was lying on the ground and a man was bent over him, blue light like a swarm of bees around his hand. A heron stood in the shallow water on the edge of the pond and watched them with beady eyes.

The man looked up, and Miri saw he had a staff in his other hand. It looked crooked, as if it had been cracked.

She drew as much sky magic as she could after her spell at the inn, and wished she’d held herself back there. Hadn’t let anger wash over her and spur her on to teach them such a big lesson.

The sight of blue dancing at her fingertips and shivering down her staff made the sorcerer go still for a moment.

He gestured to the heron, and it levered itself out of the water and bent down over Sam, so its long, sharp beak held just over his eye.

Then he straightened and focused on them.

“What have you got us into, boy?” Garth asked softly.

Under the watchful eye of the heron, Sam flinched.

His clothes looked worse than they had when she’d first seen him in the dungeon. Torn and dirty.

It could have been a result of his escape through the forest, but he’d been here two days, and she had the feeling Garth would have done something about it.

His cheek was swollen, too, and his face and arms scratched, as if he’d been in a fight.

“This is the bird that followed us from Halakan.” He looked sidelong at it. “The one that saw us with the silver pear.” He tried to move away from the beak, sliding his body, but it leaned a little more, put its beak even closer, and he froze.

“Your pet, I take it, Eric?” Soren asked, and Miri drew in a shocked breath.

There had been a chance this was Eric the Bold, but she’d never met him before. Soren had, though.

His gaze swung to Soren, and he took a step back in shock. “You!”

Soren slid his hand into his pocket, and Miri realized he was getting the moonstone. “Me.”

There was something in Soren’s face, a look of longing, and Miri realized he was desperate to ask Eric if his brother and his brother’s princess were all right, but knew Eric would never give him a truthful answer.

“What happened to you when you touched the gem? Where did you go?”

Soren looked at him with contempt. “I’m not telling you anything while you have Sam on the floor with a bird about to peck out his eye.”

“Really? He was about to sell something precious that belonged to Gerald of Halakan. I’m surprised you care what happens to him. I’m sure Gerald’s daughter doesn’t.” He looked pointedly at her.

“How do you know I’m Gerald’s daughter?” Miri took a step closer to Eric, and he raised his hand, the swarm of blue still circling it.

“No closer. You look like him, for a start, but as far as I know, Gerald’s daughter is the only living female sorcerer.” Eric cocked his head. “Not that he talked about you much. And he certainly kept you hidden. I had no idea how lovely you were.”

“Let Sam go.” She tried not to react to his leer.

“Not until he tells me where he’s hidden the silver pear.”

“Why do you want it?” Miri asked him. The answer was obvious only if he knew what it could do, and she thought her father had kept that a close secret.

“Because it was precious to Gerald of Halakan. Besides,” Eric massaged the top of his staff, “I used to own the golden apple, and I can only think the silver pear would be from the same, very elevated, source. And definitely worth having.”

Miri felt a whisper of relief run through her. He didn’t know exactly what it did. And unlike the golden apple, how the silver pear worked was not obvious. “The silver pear was only precious to my father when it was powerful. When he’d used it up, he gave it to me to wear as a piece of jewelry.”

Eric narrowed his eyes, but she knew he must already have his doubts, because her father
was
power-hungry, and in the normal course of things would have kept the silver pear himself if he hadn’t truly drained it and gone so long without it. He’d almost forgotten about it, in the end.

“Used it up? You can’t use things like the silver pear and the golden apple up.”

She didn’t answer him, just stared him down, and he looked away, petulant as a child.

“Where is it?” He crouched beside Sam, and lowered the hand holding the terrible, swarming spell toward Sam’s stomach.

Sam looked at her from the ground, his face white.

She couldn’t help him. She wasn’t at full strength, and neither she nor Soren could move fast enough to get to him before Eric did.

“Tell him,” she said to Sam. She kept her face quite blank. “A memento of my mother’s life is not worth dying for.”

Eric looked up at her sharply. “He said that. Before he died. When he didn’t really know where he was anymore. He said the silver pear killed her.”

Miri drew in a sharp breath. “
You
killed my father?”

Eric studied her. “I did. I’m surprised you’re so upset about it. Gerald of Halakan was not an easy man.”

“I loved my father.” Miri looked at Sam, gave the tiniest nod of her head. “But when it came to my mother, he was a liar. The silver pear didn’t kill her. He did.”

Eric frowned. “I’m not persuaded. Where is it?” He gave Sam a tiny taste of the spell hovering over him, making him cry out in pain.

“In the woodshed. Just in case you came back and ransacked the house.”

“Not a very trusting soul, are you?” Eric dipped his hand again, and Sam screamed. “You.” Eric pointed to Jon. “Go get it. Any delay, and your little friend here will be sorry.”

Jon turned and ran, and the heron leaped into the air after him and followed, circling in the sky above him.

“Sounds like Sam wasn’t going to sell it to you, after all.” Soren said, and Miri realized he was closer to Eric than he had been, taking advantage of every distraction to move a little nearer.

“He was interested, he just didn’t trust me completely.” Eric looked down at Sam. “That’s right, isn’t it? You only hesitated because you thought I was planning to cheat you, not because you had any scruples about selling it.”

Sam closed his eyes and turned his head away. “I was going to speak to Garth about it, first.”

Miri could see he knew he wasn’t going to escape this. It was in Eric’s eyes. He was furious that Sam had thwarted him, had caused this stand-off, and when he had what he wanted, he was going to unleash that fury.

“While we’re waiting, why don’t you tell me what happened to you when you touched that gem.” Eric turned back to Soren.

“Touch it yourself and find out,” Soren said, hand deep in his pocket, and maybe, just maybe, a few steps closer again than he had been. “I left it on the floor of your dungeon.”

Eric’s lip drew back, and he looked as if he were snarling. A few sparks of blue lifted from the mass around his hand and made for Soren, and Miri let her own fingers flare.

“No.”

Eric flicked a look at her, pulled the sparks back. “Think you’re a match for me? You’re a baby.”

She nodded. “Yes. But you’ve heard the rumors. You don’t know quite what it is I can do.” From the corner of her eye she could see Soren’s expression. It was lighter than it had been. She realized Eric’s reaction of anger and frustration had told him something Eric hadn’t realized. Told him that his brother was not in Eric’s dungeon. That Rane had taken the gem with him when he’d escaped.

Eric suddenly looked between them, as if realizing Soren was much closer than he should be.

“Get back.” He waited until Soren took a few reluctant steps back, then opened his eyes wide in astonishment. “I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before. That gem was Gerald’s. He hid his bag before I captured him, and I kept my ear to the ground in case it turned up. I thought it was a wild magic gem, that Gerald had found it or bought it. I have an informant in the Hidden Market, and they told me a sorcerer’s bag had found its way up for sale, that one of the servants of the man who sold it disappeared when he touched a gem in the bag. That’s why I sent your brother after it, I knew whose hands it ended up in. But I just realized, you two are traveling together. Were in the Great Forest together, according to my bird. It makes sense that the gem took you to Halakan. That says it isn’t wild magic, Gerald bespelled that gem himself.”

Soren lifted a shoulder, completely at ease. “Think what you like.”

Eric focused on her, a sly smile playing across his face. “Why aren’t you protecting your liege lord? William of Nesta can’t be happy that you’ve abandoned him at such a dangerous time. Even if it is to race after the silver pear.”

“It’s only a dangerous time because you’ve made it so. I heard from my father you’ve killed three other sorcerers beside Hirst Red Tongue, and to keep up with you, Nuen has destroyed every sorcerer in Therston. The two of you are out for all the power you can get.”

Eric clicked his tongue. “Now, now. Don’t try to divert the conversation. The only reason you would leave Halakan and make a suicidal journey through the Great Forest is because you are desperate for the silver pear. And that would only be because it’s powerful.”

Miri laughed, let the bitterness she felt for William come through, almost grateful he’d given her such a good excuse to leave him, now.

“No, you’re behind the times. That gem had landed more than just Soren in William’s stronghold. More and more men came through who touched it or were caught in its light. Including a whole guard from Jasper of Harness’s stronghold. William wanted me to torture them, find out if they were being sent by some sorcerer like you, Eric, trying to bring him down from within, but I refused.” She could hear Jon returning behind her, making as much noise as he could as he trampled the path.

Garth half-turned to watch him coming.

She needed to talk fast. Convince Eric the pear was not her reason for leaving Halakan. “William decided to break his obligations to me, not the other way around. He brought in Andrei Wolfsblood to kill me and take my place.”

Eric went still. “Andrei Wolfsblood. That upstart thinks he can move into the vacuum in Halakan when I was the one who killed Gerald?” He spoke low, almost to himself. “Is this the truth?”