The Stone of Farewell (113 page)

He passed swiftly from the clearing. The pack ran after, voiceless now, silent and white as snowfall.

Huddled deep in his cloak, Isgrimnur sat in the bow of the small boat and watched stubby Sinetris rowing and sniffling. The duke wore a fixed expression of grim preoccupation, in part because he found the boatman's company extremely unrewarding, but mostly because he himself hated boats, especially small boats like the one on which he was now trapped. Sinetris had spoken truthfully about one thing, anyway: this was no time to be on the water. A great storm was flailing the entire length of the coast. The choppy water of Firannos Bay constantly threatened to swamp them, and Sinetris had not stopped moaning since their hull had first touched the water a week before, some thirty leagues northward.

The duke had to admit that Sinetris was a talented boatman, if only in the defense of his own life. The Nabban-man had handled his craft well under terrible conditions. If only he would stop sniveling! Isgrimnur was no happier about the conditions for their journey than Sinetris was, but he would be damned to the blackest circle of Hell before he made a fool out of himself by showing it.

“How far to Kwanitupul?” he shouted over the noise of wind and waves.

“Half a day, master monk,” Sinetris called back, eyes red and streaming. “We will stop soon to sleep, then we can be there by midday tomorrow. ”

“Sleep!” Sigrimnur roared. “Are you mad!? It is not even dark yet! Besides, you will only try to sneak away again, and this time I will not be so merciful. If you cease your self-pitying nonsense and work, you can sleep in a bed tonight!”

“Please, holy brother!” Sinetris almost shrieked. “Do not force me to row in darkness! We will run onto the rocks. Our only beds will be down among the kilpa!”

“Don't hand that superstitious nonsense to me. I'm paying you well and I am in a hurry. If you are too weak or sore, let me take those paddles for a while.”

The oarsman, wet and cold, still managed a convincing look of wounded pride. “You! You would have us under the water in a moment! No, you cruel monk, if Sinetris must die, let it be with his oars in his hand, as befits a Firannos boatman. If Sinetris must be torn from his home and the bosom of his family and sacrificed to the whims of a monster in the robes of a priest, if he must die ... let it be as a guild-man!”

Isgrimnur groaned. “Let it be with his mouth closed, for a change. And keep paddling.”

“Rowing,” Sinetris replied frostily, then burst into tears once more.

 

It was past midnight when the first stilt-houses of Kwanitupul came into view. Sinetris, whose complaining had faded at last to a low, self-pitying murmur, nosed the boat into the great network of canals. Isgrimnur, who had briefly fallen asleep, rubbed his eyes and craned his head, looking around. Kwanitupul's ramshackle warehouses and inns were all dusted with a thin coating of snow.

If I doubted that the world had gone topsy-turvy,
Isgrimnur thought bemusedly,
here is all the proof I need: a Rimmersman taking a leaky boat to sea in a storm, and snow in the southland—in high summer. Can any doubt the world has run mad?

Madness. He remembered the hideous death of the lector and felt his stomach gurgle. Madness—or something else? It was a strange coincidence that Pryrates and Benigaris should both be in the house of Mother Church on such a dreadful night. Only a stroke of rare luck had brought Isgrimnur to Dinivan in time to hear the priest's last words, and perhaps to salvage something from this grim pass.

He had escaped from the Sancellan Aedonitis only moments before Benigaris, Duke of Nabban, had ordered his guardsmen to bar all doors. Isgrimnur could not have afforded capture—even if he had not been immediately recognized, his story would not have held up long. Hlafmansa Eve, the night of the lector's murder, had been a bad night to be an unfamiliar guest at the Sancellan.

“Do you know of a place here called
Pelippa's Bowl?”
he asked aloud. “I think it is an inn or a hostel.”

“I have never heard of the place, master monk,” Sinetris said gravely. “It sounds like a low establishment, one in which Sinetris would not be seen.” Now that they had reached the relatively still waters of the canals, the boatman had reassumed much of his dignity. Isgrimnur decided he liked him better when he sniveled.

“By the Tree, we will never find it at night. Take me to some inn you know, then. I must get something under my belt.”

Sinetris steered the little craft down a series of crisscrossing canals to the city's tavern district. Things seemed quite lively here despite the late hour, the boardwalks lined with garish cloth lanterns that swung in the wind, the alleyways full of drunken revelers.

“This is a fine inn, holy brother,” Sinetris said as they glided to a stop at the dock stairs of a well-lit establishment. “There is wine to be had, and food.” Sinetris, feeling bold now that their journey had ended safely, gave Isgrimnur a chummy, gap-toothed smile. “And women, too.” His smile grew uncertain as he surveyed Isgrimnur's face. “—Or boys, if that is more to your liking.”

The duke forced a great hiss of air between his teeth. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a gold Imperator, then placed it gently on the rowing bench beside Sinetris' skinny leg. Isgrimnur next moved to the bottommost stair. “There is your thievish payment, as I promised. Now, I have a suggestion for how you might spend
your
evening.”

Sinetris looked up warily. “Yes?”

Isgrimnur drew down his eyebrows in a horrible frown. “Spend it doing your very best to make sure that I do not see you again. Because if I do,” he lifted his hairy fist, “I will roll your eyeballs around in your pointy head. Understood?”

Sinetris dropped his oar-blades and backed water hastily, so that Isgrimnur had to quickly swing his other foot up onto the stairs. “So this is how you monks treat Sinetris after all his favors!?” the boatman said indignantly, puffing up his thin chest like a courting pigeon. “No wonder the church is in bad repute! You ... bearded barbarian!” He splashed off into the darkened canal.

Isgrimnur laughed harshly, then stumped up the stairs to the inn.

After several fitful nights in the grasslands—nights in which he had been forced to keep a careful watch on the treacherous Sinetris, who had several times tried to slip away and leave Isgrimnur standed on the bleak, windswept coast of Firannos Bay—the Duke of Elvirtshalla took his sleep in full measure. He remained in bed until the sun was high in the sky, then broke his fast with a manly portion of bread and honey accompanied by a stoup of ale. It was nearly noontide before he obtained directions to
Pelippa's Bowl
from the innkeeper and was out on the rainy canals once more. His boatman this time was a Wrannaman, who despite the bitter wind wore only a loincloth and a broad-brimmed hat with a red, drizzle-soaked feather drooping from the band. The boatman's sullen silence was a pleasant change from the ceaseless carping of Sinetris. Isgrimnur settled back to fondle his new-sprouted beard and enjoy the sodden sights of Kwanitupul, a city he had not visited for many years.

The storm had obviously cast a pall over the trading city. Unless things had changed greatly since his last sojourn, there should be many more boats out on the water at midday, many more folk wandering Kwanitupul's exotic byways. Those who were about seemed to be hurrying to their destinations. Even the ritual cries of greeting and challenge that rang between canal boats seemed unusually muted. Like insects, the residents seemed chilled almost to immobility by the snow that melted in patches on their wooden walkways, and the wind-borne sleet that stung exposed limbs and filled the canals with circular ripples.

Here and there among the sparse crowds Isgrimnur saw small gatherings of Fire Dancers, the religious maniacs who had gained their notoriety by self-immolation. They had become a familiar sight to the duke since he had first reached Nabban. These wild-eyed penitents, uncaring of the cold, stood on the walkways near busy canal intersections and shouted the praises of their dark master, the Storm King. Isgrimnur wondered where they had heard that name. He had never heard it spoken south of the Frostmarch before, even in a children's bogey-story. It was no coincidence, he knew, but he could not help musing on whether these robed lunatics were the pawns of someone like Pryrates or true visionaries. If the latter was the case, then the end they foresaw might be real.

Isgrimnur shuddered at this thought and made the sign of the Tree on his breast. Black times, these were. For all their shouting, though, the Fire Dancers did not seem to be engaging in their familiar trick of setting themselves aflame. The duke smiled sourly. Perhaps it was a little too damp today.

The boatman stopped at last before an unprepossessing structure in the warehouse district, far from the centers of commerce. When Isgrimnur had paid him, the little dark man reached up with his gaff hook and pulled down the rope ladder from the dock. The duke was scarcely halfway up the swinging ladder before the boatman had turned around and was coasting out of sight down a side-canal.

Huffing and cursing his fat belly, Isgrimnur at last made his way up onto the more trustworthy footing of the dock. He rapped at the weather-worn door, then waited a long time in the freezing rain without answer, growing increasingly cross. At last the door swung open, revealing a frowning woman of middle age.

“I don't know where the half-wit is,” she told Isgrimnur as though he had asked. “It's not enough that I have to do every other lick of work here, but now I have to answer the door as well.”

For a moment the duke was so taken aback that he almost apologized. He struggled with his impulse toward chivalry. “I want a room,” he said at last.

“Well, come in, then,” the woman said doubtfully, opening the door wider. Beyond lay a makeshift boathouse that stank of tar and old fish. A couple of hulls were laid out like casualties of battle. In the corner, a brown arm protruded from a huddle of blankets. For a moment Isgrimnur thought it was a corpse that had been carelessly thrown into the doorway; when the arm moved, pulling the blankets closer, he realized that it was only someone sleeping. He had a sudden premonition that he might not find the accommodations here up to the best standards, but he forced the thought down.

You're getting fussy, old man,
he chided himself.
On the battlefield, you've slept in mud and blood and the nests of biting flies.

He had a mission, he
reminded himself. His
own comfort was secondary.

“By the way,” he called after the innkeeper, whose brisk steps had taken her almost the entire length of the dooryard, “I'm looking for someone.” Suddenly he could not recall the name Dinivan had told him. He stopped, running his fingers through his damp beard, then remembered. “Tiamak. I'm looking for Tiamak.”

When the woman turned, her sour expression had been supplanted by a look of greedy pleasure.
“You?”
she said. “You're the one with the gold?” She opened her arms wide as though to embrace him. Despite the dozen cubits that separated them, the duke took a step backward, repelled. The bundle of blankets in the corner began to wiggle like a nest of piglets, then fell away. A small and very thin Wrannaman sat up, eyes still half-closed from sleep.

“I am Tiamak,” he said, trying to stifle a yawn. As he surveyed Isgrimnur, the marsh-man's face seemed to show disappointment, as though he had expected something better. The duke felt his annoyance returning. Were all these people mad? Who did they think he was, or expect him to be?

“I bring you tidings,” Isgrimnur said stiffly, uncertain of how to proceed. “But we should talk in private.”

“I will show you to your room,” the woman said hastily, “the finest in the house, and the little brown gentleman—another honored guest—can join you there.”