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A few days later Tad found himself at the back of a line of horses, looking over a very fine estate. It wasn’t the largest he had ever seen, and in fact compared to some of the royal estates near Newholy it was quite small. You could almost see one end from the other. A low stone wall, all of which he could see seemed in good repair, bordered a few square miles of sweet grassy hill perfect for horses. The main house a simple rectangle three stories tall with big evenly-spaced windows, topped with thatch at least a yard thick. Most “people of quality” would scoff at the idea of using such lowly materials, but a skillful thatch was as good as shingles, and was warmer in winter months.
Near the house were two other buildings: the large one was a barn and tack-house and the smaller one was likely a workshop of some sort. Even a modest estate required a lot of maintenance. Between the buildings was a large courtyard paved in some kind of crushed rock, and the whole affair was trimmed with flower beds and smallish trees in decorative stone vases. Behind the buildings was the edge of what looked to be an acre or two of vegetable garden, most of it out of sight on the other side of the hill.
A low inner wall encircled the buildings and the garden. In the broad zone between the two walls was grassland, turning brown in the autumn sun. Several horses cantered by, gazed at the visitors for a few moments, then turned suddenly and sped off in the other direction. For a few moments Tad thought he could see sunlight rippling over their coats like wind in the grass, but the animals crested the hill and were gone.
The party was stopped, still mounted, on the road facing the gate. A sign declared it as “Nearshore”, which struck Tad as being odd because there were no bodies of water in evidence.
The sisters’ affliction, which had become known as “the magic rash”, had led them here. “I’m pretty sure this is the place,” said Nadia with relief, “but it looks like someone important lives here. It might be rude to just barge in.”
“If there’s a town nearby, we can ask people who live here, then decide how to approach.” Offered Nolan.
“We could just go up and ask. You know people do that sometimes, right?” Everyone looked at the gnome Earkey as if he had just sprouted horns. “What -- is that a bad idea for some reason? Go knock on the door and ask ‘Who are you?’”.
“The point is to be welcomed inside,” instructed the bishop. “We will find out who lives here from the local baron, and I will gain an introduction.”
“Baroness...,” corected Aidan, “Rotholda used to be Baroness here. If she’s still in office I’m sure we can get in to see her today.”
But the conversation became irrelevant when an older man on horseback, wearing the yellow stripes of horsemaster on his high black boots, cantered down the drive to greet them. “Good morning to you travelers. Is there some assistance I can offer you?” Nadia leaned over her in her saddle and whispered conspiratorially in Tad’s ear, “I think what he really means is, ‘how may I best be rid of you?’” Her breath set off an alien thrill down his spine.
“I am the Bishop Ambrose, disciple of Saint Engel the Zelous, and these are my companions. We were just curious as to who lives at this estate.”
“My Lady Calanth resides here, but she is not accepting visitors today. If you wish an audience, you may leave a card.” The wizard produced ink, paper, and a suitable writing surface almost before the thane’s utterance was finished, and handed them to Ambrose.
The Bishop had just begun the greeting when Nolan put his hand on the clergyman’s arm, giving him pause. “I think we met a Lady Calanth, several years back. On the road to Vohanis?”
“Princess Calanth, Duke Fredrick’s neice?” exclaimed Nadia happily. “I remember her. Didn’t she give you some advice on finding a husband, dear Sister?”
“I would never inconvenience a princess for advice on husband-hunting.” said the darker sister rather darkly.
“Oooh let me write the letter, Ambrose.”
“Too late, Rider Nadia. I am already well in to it.” And indeed his pen was advancing at an alarming rate. “But I will include your name. I am certain she will remember you.”
While the cleric worked on his letter, the Horsemaster (whose name was Lewis) and the sisters got to talking about their horses. “I have never laid eyes on an Arducian charger up close,” said Lewis with a wondering gleam in his eye, “they are magnificent mounts.” Nadia had taken over part of the road to post her mount and then show off a few vicious hoof attacks. “But they are smaller than I expected.”
“They’re faster than the Asperan heavies, and more maneuverable. For skirmishing I like these much better, and they are unbelievably tough,” said Aidan stroking her Grassfire’s neck, “but it’s still true there’s nothing like a wall of Asperan heavies to put terror into the enemy.”
That exchange launched a spirited discussion of mounts and tactics that were mind-numbing. The horsemaster and the sisters could have talked for hours, Tad was sure, but the Bishop’s pen was mercifully swift.
“A letter for your mistress, Master Lewis. We will be in Walter’s Bailey awaiting her pleasure.” And with a few swift courteous farewells the group advanced on the town of Walter’s Bailey.
A sharp crack across his back jolted Tad’s whole spine arrow-straight. It wasn’t so much that it hurt (which it did some) but that it came without warning. Aidan was just as good at sudden attacks as Nolan was at subterfuge. “You are not a sack of potatoes, boy. Sit up! Ride your animal, do not slump on it!” Far from putting a pause to his education, leaving Corak had only effected a change in his curriculum.
His fighting lessons with the sisters were shorter than his schooling in Corak but more bruising, and he practiced daily with his small crossbow. While on the road he had to keep perfect riding form, and after the light gave out in the evening he would read from his book by lantern light. Mr. Brightstar and the Bishop didn’t just make him read, they asked him about why people did the things they did. Most of the time, Tad didn’t have a clue about what answers he should give.
Tad was looking forward to a day in town, even if it was just for overnight. It would mean errands instead of beatings, and a soft bed instead of the hard ground. It wasn’t so much the ground he minded: he was usually asleep the moment he laid down. But sleeping outside brought unwelcome dreams, fully of bloody claws and the voice of his mother calling to him in a voice full of dirt.
But the party did not arrive in Walter’s Bailey that day. The town was just in sight when a boy slightly younger than Tad riding a smallish horse at a dead run caught up to them from behind, bearing a letter for Ambrose. With a practiced flick the Bishop shook out the folded paper with one hand.
“The princess is ill, and her doctor would like a consult. We are all invited to stay, of course.”
“We might as well have just stayed at the gate, it would have saved us the effort,” grumbled Earkey. “I could taken a nap.”
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
4: Old Friends
"He wouldn't stop dancing! We had to pin him down to put out the fire!" Laughter rang off the brickwork walls of the Dog and Peonie, out the second-story windows and into the streets of upper Corak. Tad had heard his master tell this story so many times in the last few moons that it failed to embarrass him. Now he just ran his fingers through his much shortened hair for emphasis, which got more laughs. Even after three moons in Corak, it still hadn’t grown fully back.
Nolan Brightstar was breakfasting with old friends. From what Tad had gathered, the six of them had gone West out of the kingdom some years before, and never since their return had they all been reunited. Like so many, they had come to the city to see Old Ludo pass his title down to his son, the new Duke of Corak his Royal Grace Fredick of the Line of Harrell, Striker and Guardian of the Coin of the Realm, Protector of the Southern Reaches, and many-other-titles-few-could-remember. They had all connected to their old friend Nolan through incidental run-ins with Tad, who thought the whole affair to be craftily arranged.
This morning's breakfast was a typical example of his boss' work. Tad doubted that he had run into any of them by accident. Rather, he had been placed where they would inevitably encounter him and ask after his master. The broad and bearded dwarf in Arcanist robes wearing several (possibly magical) thick golden rings was attached to the local arcane campus, but he was no teacher. Arcanist Minzerec Granitehelm, that was the dwarf's name, had seen Tad's medallion in passing and stopped him in the campus courtyard on his way to lessons. On another day Bishop Ambrose, a white-haired but hale man, discovered Tad while inspecting the small shrine where the boy learned history. The sisters, one darker and more stern, the other more blonde and outgoing, he met through his fighting school. They were former students of the elderly swordmaster in residence there. The only person Mr. Brightstar had to go looking for was Earkey, who was apparently some kind of priest. During the day he taught religious studies in the gnomish community in the middle city, and at night he was a bouncer at a bar in the Bottom.
The sisters were bickering. They hadn’t seen each other for months before the coronation, so naturally they had a lot of bickering to catch up on.
“Are you still feeding your horse apples?” Asked Aidan, the dark-haired one.
“There’s nothing wrong with apples. She likes them,” countered the fair-haired Nadia while transfering several strips of bacon and two boiled eggs from the central bowl onto her own wooden platter.
“You should feed her leva-fruit. A much more fitting treat.” To press her point, Aidan scooped a generous portion of expensive fresh fruit onto her own plate and took possession of the ceramic carafe of unfermented grape juice.
“She doesn’t like leva, she likes apples. And since I love my horse I know what she likes.” Nadia punctuated this by dropping a huge amount of thick oatmeal onto her plate and poured syrup over everything.
“If you really loved her you would teach her to enjoy more suitable treats. She’s an Arducian charger, not some plough horse.” Tad noticed that, even though she seemed to eat daintily, Aidan’s food was disappearing at an alarming rate.
“Just because you insist on cramming expensive morsels down Grassfire’s throat doesn’t mean you love him. He might hate them for all you know.” Nadia scooped a giant spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth triumphantly.
“He likes them just fine. He eats them doesn’t he?”
“Maybe he just eats them to please you,” countered Nadia, jabbing at her sister with her fork. “Horses can be dumb that way.” Her plate was nearly empty, and Tad ran off to tell the innkeeper to bring a lot more food. Women or not, these Riders were hungry. By the time he returned, the conversation had shifted.
“The donations have been very generous,” said the bishop beatifically, “especially from those in the working classes.” He had a face like a prince of Soubous: narrow and fine with clear blue eyes. Aspera’s own nobles often had the same features, thanks to centuries of intermarriage with the Soubous nobility. “Saint Engel’s message of hard work and zelous faith appeals to them, as it should to all of us.” The holy man put something into his mouth and chewed slowly, knowing full well he had the attention of the assemblage. When he was done chewing and swallowing he resumed speaking, “We’re even taking over the old stronghold of Myngar Harrell the Younger, and we’re turning it into a basilica dedicated to the Saint. A bastion for the faithful.”
“I’ve been by there before,” pronounced Aidan. “That part of the Yeron silted up a century ago, and the river is a mile away now. It has no strategic value!”
“Not a worldly one, but battles of faith take place in hearts and minds as well as strength of arms. The basilica will have great spiritual value, with Saint Engel’s blessing.”
“I see you are more superstitious than ever,” rumbled the dwarf, “and I am surprised. You must realize by now how foolish it is to ally yourself with forces that exist only in your mind.”
“I however am not surprised that you insist on closing your eyes.” retorted the bishop, “You’ve been touched by divine powers more than once, and if that didn’t change your mind five years ago then I hardly expect you to have changed since then.”
“I talk to my god all the time,” shrugged the gnome. “He even talks back some times. Hard to disbelieve when you feel his presence in you every day. AND they give us the power to help people. I don’t understand why you have to be so obstinate, Minzy.”
Some unpleasant expression moved on to Minzerec’s face and set up residence there. Dwarves excelled at scowling like no other race Tad had yet encountered. Not only did his eyebrows seem to knit themselves together, but as he worked his jaw muscles the black hairs of his beard seemed to flex. “You’re the obstinate ones. At best, you have a divergent form of innate magic which you attribute to non-existent dieties. At worst you gain your powers from powerful entities beyond the Veil, which have their own agendas and can not be trusted.”
“They certainly are powerful entities, and they certainly do have their own agendas.” Ambrose had switched to the kind of voice he might use while carefully explaining the facts of life to a child. “And what scares the Academy so much is that they can’t control that agenda.”
“Same old arguments,” sighed Earkey hapilly, “just like old times.”
Conversation stalled while everybody tried to think of a new topic. Tad wondered if he should redirect things by asking Earkey why an empowered priest was playing security guard at night, but discarded the idea as too likely to provoke Minzerec. The conversation was saved by, of all things, a very drunk elf who burst into the room as if he had been invited. He was dirty to an extreme, and his fine elven hair hung lank and oily over most of his face. These displays of untoward hygiene being insufficient, the real offense was the odor that proceeded him: a breath of sewer tinged with bitter lemon.
He was also very loud. The elf pulled up a chair and squeezed himself between the Bishop and the halfling. “My old friends! My dear old friends! I’m shoo glad to shee you,” he slurred at the top of his lungs. Tad had the odd sensation of burning in his nose and eyes, all of which began to water. “Itsh ben sooo long. Howya ben, guys?”
The strange elf’s clothes looked like he had been sleeping in a ditch after a hard day of cleaning gutters. He had conveniently brought several of his own bottles of wine, which he produced from inside his tatty traveling cloak. “Wine anyone? I wash just telling shomeone yesherday ...” and here the elf took a long pull direct from an open bottle. As he did so his hair fell away, and Tad recognized, with a complete lack of shock, that this was the very same elf he had seen only a few days before. As was his habit, Tad had reported this elf’s curious circumstances to his master.
Momentarily satisfied, the elf put down the bottle with an earnest sigh. There was an awkward pause while the assemblage waited for him to finish his thought, but the elf instead leaned over until his cheek touched the table. “Oh, thas nice and cool,” he murmured, and began to snore.
Thaddius was feeling woozy in the the head from the elf’s many fumes, and would have fallen over if Mr. Brightstar handn’t put out a hand to steady him. “Tad, meet Avra Basil. He is a student of secret martial lore, and faller-on of hard times. Nadia, give me a hand will you? Let’s move him to the divan.”
It was in mid-elf-movement that Tad noticed a discoloration on Nadia’s otherwise flawless skin, a smattering of tiny bruise-like dots had crept up from her shirt collar while no-one was looking. Tad was sure it hadn’t been there when she arrived, and against her cream-like flesh the spots struck him as unwelcome. “Are you feeling well, lady Nadia?”
“Too much rich food since coming to the city, I’m sure.” The tall woman dropped Avra onto the divan with all the care one would give to a sack of flour. The elf groaned some, then rolled away from the window’s light before resuming his musical snores.
“You haven’t had a bad food reaction a single day in your life, or I’m not your sister,” insisted Aidan. “Maybe Avra is sick, and you got it when he sat down. He’s dirty enough.”
“Well he didn’t sit anywhere near you, and you have the same thing. Look at your arm.” Aidan stuck one arm a little farther out of her sleeve to examine the inside of one wrist. “And if you’ve been sick a day in your life then I’m not your sister.”
Ambrose stretched out his hand to Nadia, “Let me have a closer look. It doesn’t look like anything common. You haven’t come into contact with anything strange lately, have you? Eaten anything unusual? Get bitten by any monsters?”
“Doesn’t look like any poisons I know,” offered Nolan. Every head turned towards him, which for some reason made him mumble into his cup. “Not that I’m an expert or anything.”
“How do you feel?” Resumed the priest. “Any fever? Pains in the belly, sore joints? Lightness in the head? Anything like that? Nothing at all?” Nadia and Aidan both shook their heads repeatedly.
“What about your mental state,” inquired the dwarf, “any strange thoughts? An unexplained sensation, or compulsion?”
The sisters looked at each other, but Aidan was the first to admit, “I’ve had a weird feeling all day, like I’ve forgotten something.”
“I keep wanting get in the saddle and ride,” added Nadia, “but I have no idea where to go. Does that count?”
The dwarf stood suddenly and strode to the chamber door to close it, then turned his impressive breadth around. Tad had not noticed before how broad the wizard was. Minzerec’s kin usually wore clothes that made them seem even broader, but even in simple arcanist’s robes he was as wide as two men. “If someone has put a compulsion on you without your knowledge then the Academy would take it very seriously. With your permission, I would like to examine your auras.”
Having received an assent from both women, the wizard said a word and made a small motion with one finger, and then for a few minutes it seemed like he wasn’t doing anything at all. “I see. You are indeed the subject of a kind of geas, but not the usual sort.”
“There’s a usual sort?” Aidan sounded irritable, as if at any other time she might entertain magical meddling, but just now wasn’t a very good time.
“Of course. The usual sort is the kind your mother used to force you to go looking for your grandmother.”
“No ... I didn’t need magic to make me go look for grandma Issyren,” corrected Aidan. “The spell forced me to take Nadia with me, which was completely unnecessary.”
“I would have looked for her too,” protested Nadia, “I love her as much as you do!”
“We were lucky we didn’t kill each other before we found grandma.”
“As I recall,” smiled the dwarf, “that was also part of the geas. If you had shirked your duties or tried to harm each other then you would have become very ill for quite some time. I think this little rash is just the beginning.”
“That’s not fair, we don’t even know what we’re supposed to be doing,” pouted Nadia.
“And I don’t remember anyone casting any lengthly spells around me. I think I would have remembered.” Aidan caressed the the handle of her dagger as she said this, and Tad got a small sense of dread. The sisters were trained Riders, daughters of the Baroness of Ardengard, and each had accomplishments to their names. But it was Aidan who had a reputation as an implacable enemy, and just then she looked every bit the part of a vengeful warrior.
“There is more than the usual degree of thaumaturgy in this magic. And it is stronger than even a Magi could accomplish alone. There is a more extensive binding at work,”
“Which we need to find out about because we don’t want to get sick,” interjected Nadia, “It would be bad for my complexion.”
“Indeed. I recommend you move around the city for a bit. A magical compunction will let you know when you’re going in the right direction.”
“Tad, clean up here will you?” said Mr. Brightstar, “We’re going out for a bit. And don’t leave the inn. There might be work later.”
Hours later Thaddius was in the chambers he shared with his master, practicing finger exercises and weapon draws. The simple repetition failed to keep his mind off the thought he might be leaving Corak so soon. He felt like he had barely settled in, and he was getting to know the city in ways he hadn’t known was possible. It was a living thing, the city on the Sauvine, and it’s people were like its blood. If something was out of place, or if someone wasn’t acting right, Tad could tell. A hundred people knew his name: more people than lived in his whole village back home.
When Mr. Brightstar swept into the room and started packing, Tad’s disappointment settled in his belly like a pot of cold porridge. The halfling tossed a bag of coins at Tad, “I need you to restock our supplies. One week should be enough for a start, but don’t forget feed for the horses -- there’s not much grazing left this time of year. And don’t forget a bottle of decent brandy. Some Old Baron if you can find it.”
Tad didn’t move immediately, but stood there feeling unhappy. Mr. Brightstar put one hand on his shoulder in an uncharacteristic fatherly way. “Hey, we’ve done dangerous things before... haven’t I always kept you out of serious harm?”
“It isn’t that, sir. It’s just that ... well I was starting to really like being here. I’m learning so much, and...” Tad didn’t know how to say the words. It was stupid to say that he would miss his friends or that he liked living in the city. What did it matter, anyway?
“We’ll come back Thaddius, I promise. Probably in time for the winter festival. And just think -- you might have some really good stories to tell your friends when you get back.” His master smiled then, “I have gifts for you when you get back. Now move those legs of yours and get going. We have to travel west tonight or else the sisters’ geas will start to really kick in. We wouldn’t want to mar sweet Nadia’s skin any further, would we?” His master’s smile chased Tad out the door and down the stairs.
Nolan’s gifts were practical and very well received. First was new leather pants and jerkin, because Tad had outgrown the old ones. Second, and a little less well received, was “Geranicus’ Pocket History of Aspera”, printed on pages so thin that Tad could see through them. The best gift of all was a new short sword. It wasn’t enchanted or bejeweled like the arms that Mr. Brightstar carried, but it wasn’t a bent old piece of black iron either. It was brand-new, it was sharp, and it was shiny. Tad couldn’t stop from grinning.
“I still want you to avoid fighting whenever possible. But if you get cornered ... well you can’t be an adventurer without a dependable weapon. Get your new things on and bring down the bags. We’re leaving now.”
Nolan Brightstar was breakfasting with old friends. From what Tad had gathered, the six of them had gone West out of the kingdom some years before, and never since their return had they all been reunited. Like so many, they had come to the city to see Old Ludo pass his title down to his son, the new Duke of Corak his Royal Grace Fredick of the Line of Harrell, Striker and Guardian of the Coin of the Realm, Protector of the Southern Reaches, and many-other-titles-few-could-remember. They had all connected to their old friend Nolan through incidental run-ins with Tad, who thought the whole affair to be craftily arranged.
This morning's breakfast was a typical example of his boss' work. Tad doubted that he had run into any of them by accident. Rather, he had been placed where they would inevitably encounter him and ask after his master. The broad and bearded dwarf in Arcanist robes wearing several (possibly magical) thick golden rings was attached to the local arcane campus, but he was no teacher. Arcanist Minzerec Granitehelm, that was the dwarf's name, had seen Tad's medallion in passing and stopped him in the campus courtyard on his way to lessons. On another day Bishop Ambrose, a white-haired but hale man, discovered Tad while inspecting the small shrine where the boy learned history. The sisters, one darker and more stern, the other more blonde and outgoing, he met through his fighting school. They were former students of the elderly swordmaster in residence there. The only person Mr. Brightstar had to go looking for was Earkey, who was apparently some kind of priest. During the day he taught religious studies in the gnomish community in the middle city, and at night he was a bouncer at a bar in the Bottom.
The sisters were bickering. They hadn’t seen each other for months before the coronation, so naturally they had a lot of bickering to catch up on.
“Are you still feeding your horse apples?” Asked Aidan, the dark-haired one.
“There’s nothing wrong with apples. She likes them,” countered the fair-haired Nadia while transfering several strips of bacon and two boiled eggs from the central bowl onto her own wooden platter.
“You should feed her leva-fruit. A much more fitting treat.” To press her point, Aidan scooped a generous portion of expensive fresh fruit onto her own plate and took possession of the ceramic carafe of unfermented grape juice.
“She doesn’t like leva, she likes apples. And since I love my horse I know what she likes.” Nadia punctuated this by dropping a huge amount of thick oatmeal onto her plate and poured syrup over everything.
“If you really loved her you would teach her to enjoy more suitable treats. She’s an Arducian charger, not some plough horse.” Tad noticed that, even though she seemed to eat daintily, Aidan’s food was disappearing at an alarming rate.
“Just because you insist on cramming expensive morsels down Grassfire’s throat doesn’t mean you love him. He might hate them for all you know.” Nadia scooped a giant spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth triumphantly.
“He likes them just fine. He eats them doesn’t he?”
“Maybe he just eats them to please you,” countered Nadia, jabbing at her sister with her fork. “Horses can be dumb that way.” Her plate was nearly empty, and Tad ran off to tell the innkeeper to bring a lot more food. Women or not, these Riders were hungry. By the time he returned, the conversation had shifted.
“The donations have been very generous,” said the bishop beatifically, “especially from those in the working classes.” He had a face like a prince of Soubous: narrow and fine with clear blue eyes. Aspera’s own nobles often had the same features, thanks to centuries of intermarriage with the Soubous nobility. “Saint Engel’s message of hard work and zelous faith appeals to them, as it should to all of us.” The holy man put something into his mouth and chewed slowly, knowing full well he had the attention of the assemblage. When he was done chewing and swallowing he resumed speaking, “We’re even taking over the old stronghold of Myngar Harrell the Younger, and we’re turning it into a basilica dedicated to the Saint. A bastion for the faithful.”
“I’ve been by there before,” pronounced Aidan. “That part of the Yeron silted up a century ago, and the river is a mile away now. It has no strategic value!”
“Not a worldly one, but battles of faith take place in hearts and minds as well as strength of arms. The basilica will have great spiritual value, with Saint Engel’s blessing.”
“I see you are more superstitious than ever,” rumbled the dwarf, “and I am surprised. You must realize by now how foolish it is to ally yourself with forces that exist only in your mind.”
“I however am not surprised that you insist on closing your eyes.” retorted the bishop, “You’ve been touched by divine powers more than once, and if that didn’t change your mind five years ago then I hardly expect you to have changed since then.”
“I talk to my god all the time,” shrugged the gnome. “He even talks back some times. Hard to disbelieve when you feel his presence in you every day. AND they give us the power to help people. I don’t understand why you have to be so obstinate, Minzy.”
Some unpleasant expression moved on to Minzerec’s face and set up residence there. Dwarves excelled at scowling like no other race Tad had yet encountered. Not only did his eyebrows seem to knit themselves together, but as he worked his jaw muscles the black hairs of his beard seemed to flex. “You’re the obstinate ones. At best, you have a divergent form of innate magic which you attribute to non-existent dieties. At worst you gain your powers from powerful entities beyond the Veil, which have their own agendas and can not be trusted.”
“They certainly are powerful entities, and they certainly do have their own agendas.” Ambrose had switched to the kind of voice he might use while carefully explaining the facts of life to a child. “And what scares the Academy so much is that they can’t control that agenda.”
“Same old arguments,” sighed Earkey hapilly, “just like old times.”
Conversation stalled while everybody tried to think of a new topic. Tad wondered if he should redirect things by asking Earkey why an empowered priest was playing security guard at night, but discarded the idea as too likely to provoke Minzerec. The conversation was saved by, of all things, a very drunk elf who burst into the room as if he had been invited. He was dirty to an extreme, and his fine elven hair hung lank and oily over most of his face. These displays of untoward hygiene being insufficient, the real offense was the odor that proceeded him: a breath of sewer tinged with bitter lemon.
He was also very loud. The elf pulled up a chair and squeezed himself between the Bishop and the halfling. “My old friends! My dear old friends! I’m shoo glad to shee you,” he slurred at the top of his lungs. Tad had the odd sensation of burning in his nose and eyes, all of which began to water. “Itsh ben sooo long. Howya ben, guys?”
The strange elf’s clothes looked like he had been sleeping in a ditch after a hard day of cleaning gutters. He had conveniently brought several of his own bottles of wine, which he produced from inside his tatty traveling cloak. “Wine anyone? I wash just telling shomeone yesherday ...” and here the elf took a long pull direct from an open bottle. As he did so his hair fell away, and Tad recognized, with a complete lack of shock, that this was the very same elf he had seen only a few days before. As was his habit, Tad had reported this elf’s curious circumstances to his master.
Momentarily satisfied, the elf put down the bottle with an earnest sigh. There was an awkward pause while the assemblage waited for him to finish his thought, but the elf instead leaned over until his cheek touched the table. “Oh, thas nice and cool,” he murmured, and began to snore.
Thaddius was feeling woozy in the the head from the elf’s many fumes, and would have fallen over if Mr. Brightstar handn’t put out a hand to steady him. “Tad, meet Avra Basil. He is a student of secret martial lore, and faller-on of hard times. Nadia, give me a hand will you? Let’s move him to the divan.”
It was in mid-elf-movement that Tad noticed a discoloration on Nadia’s otherwise flawless skin, a smattering of tiny bruise-like dots had crept up from her shirt collar while no-one was looking. Tad was sure it hadn’t been there when she arrived, and against her cream-like flesh the spots struck him as unwelcome. “Are you feeling well, lady Nadia?”
“Too much rich food since coming to the city, I’m sure.” The tall woman dropped Avra onto the divan with all the care one would give to a sack of flour. The elf groaned some, then rolled away from the window’s light before resuming his musical snores.
“You haven’t had a bad food reaction a single day in your life, or I’m not your sister,” insisted Aidan. “Maybe Avra is sick, and you got it when he sat down. He’s dirty enough.”
“Well he didn’t sit anywhere near you, and you have the same thing. Look at your arm.” Aidan stuck one arm a little farther out of her sleeve to examine the inside of one wrist. “And if you’ve been sick a day in your life then I’m not your sister.”
Ambrose stretched out his hand to Nadia, “Let me have a closer look. It doesn’t look like anything common. You haven’t come into contact with anything strange lately, have you? Eaten anything unusual? Get bitten by any monsters?”
“Doesn’t look like any poisons I know,” offered Nolan. Every head turned towards him, which for some reason made him mumble into his cup. “Not that I’m an expert or anything.”
“How do you feel?” Resumed the priest. “Any fever? Pains in the belly, sore joints? Lightness in the head? Anything like that? Nothing at all?” Nadia and Aidan both shook their heads repeatedly.
“What about your mental state,” inquired the dwarf, “any strange thoughts? An unexplained sensation, or compulsion?”
The sisters looked at each other, but Aidan was the first to admit, “I’ve had a weird feeling all day, like I’ve forgotten something.”
“I keep wanting get in the saddle and ride,” added Nadia, “but I have no idea where to go. Does that count?”
The dwarf stood suddenly and strode to the chamber door to close it, then turned his impressive breadth around. Tad had not noticed before how broad the wizard was. Minzerec’s kin usually wore clothes that made them seem even broader, but even in simple arcanist’s robes he was as wide as two men. “If someone has put a compulsion on you without your knowledge then the Academy would take it very seriously. With your permission, I would like to examine your auras.”
Having received an assent from both women, the wizard said a word and made a small motion with one finger, and then for a few minutes it seemed like he wasn’t doing anything at all. “I see. You are indeed the subject of a kind of geas, but not the usual sort.”
“There’s a usual sort?” Aidan sounded irritable, as if at any other time she might entertain magical meddling, but just now wasn’t a very good time.
“Of course. The usual sort is the kind your mother used to force you to go looking for your grandmother.”
“No ... I didn’t need magic to make me go look for grandma Issyren,” corrected Aidan. “The spell forced me to take Nadia with me, which was completely unnecessary.”
“I would have looked for her too,” protested Nadia, “I love her as much as you do!”
“We were lucky we didn’t kill each other before we found grandma.”
“As I recall,” smiled the dwarf, “that was also part of the geas. If you had shirked your duties or tried to harm each other then you would have become very ill for quite some time. I think this little rash is just the beginning.”
“That’s not fair, we don’t even know what we’re supposed to be doing,” pouted Nadia.
“And I don’t remember anyone casting any lengthly spells around me. I think I would have remembered.” Aidan caressed the the handle of her dagger as she said this, and Tad got a small sense of dread. The sisters were trained Riders, daughters of the Baroness of Ardengard, and each had accomplishments to their names. But it was Aidan who had a reputation as an implacable enemy, and just then she looked every bit the part of a vengeful warrior.
“There is more than the usual degree of thaumaturgy in this magic. And it is stronger than even a Magi could accomplish alone. There is a more extensive binding at work,”
“Which we need to find out about because we don’t want to get sick,” interjected Nadia, “It would be bad for my complexion.”
“Indeed. I recommend you move around the city for a bit. A magical compunction will let you know when you’re going in the right direction.”
“Tad, clean up here will you?” said Mr. Brightstar, “We’re going out for a bit. And don’t leave the inn. There might be work later.”
Hours later Thaddius was in the chambers he shared with his master, practicing finger exercises and weapon draws. The simple repetition failed to keep his mind off the thought he might be leaving Corak so soon. He felt like he had barely settled in, and he was getting to know the city in ways he hadn’t known was possible. It was a living thing, the city on the Sauvine, and it’s people were like its blood. If something was out of place, or if someone wasn’t acting right, Tad could tell. A hundred people knew his name: more people than lived in his whole village back home.
When Mr. Brightstar swept into the room and started packing, Tad’s disappointment settled in his belly like a pot of cold porridge. The halfling tossed a bag of coins at Tad, “I need you to restock our supplies. One week should be enough for a start, but don’t forget feed for the horses -- there’s not much grazing left this time of year. And don’t forget a bottle of decent brandy. Some Old Baron if you can find it.”
Tad didn’t move immediately, but stood there feeling unhappy. Mr. Brightstar put one hand on his shoulder in an uncharacteristic fatherly way. “Hey, we’ve done dangerous things before... haven’t I always kept you out of serious harm?”
“It isn’t that, sir. It’s just that ... well I was starting to really like being here. I’m learning so much, and...” Tad didn’t know how to say the words. It was stupid to say that he would miss his friends or that he liked living in the city. What did it matter, anyway?
“We’ll come back Thaddius, I promise. Probably in time for the winter festival. And just think -- you might have some really good stories to tell your friends when you get back.” His master smiled then, “I have gifts for you when you get back. Now move those legs of yours and get going. We have to travel west tonight or else the sisters’ geas will start to really kick in. We wouldn’t want to mar sweet Nadia’s skin any further, would we?” His master’s smile chased Tad out the door and down the stairs.
Nolan’s gifts were practical and very well received. First was new leather pants and jerkin, because Tad had outgrown the old ones. Second, and a little less well received, was “Geranicus’ Pocket History of Aspera”, printed on pages so thin that Tad could see through them. The best gift of all was a new short sword. It wasn’t enchanted or bejeweled like the arms that Mr. Brightstar carried, but it wasn’t a bent old piece of black iron either. It was brand-new, it was sharp, and it was shiny. Tad couldn’t stop from grinning.
“I still want you to avoid fighting whenever possible. But if you get cornered ... well you can’t be an adventurer without a dependable weapon. Get your new things on and bring down the bags. We’re leaving now.”
Saturday, June 13, 2009
3: City Life
Thaddius hadn’t known a broken nose could bleed so much, but being chased through most of Corak was probably making it worse. Tad had followed the trail of red drops through a mile of crowded streets, letting his quarry run far enough ahead so he could barely see the older boy’s black curly hair. He caught sight of his target, holding a bloody rag to his face, entering a large wooden building labeled Loggins & Smitts Drayage. Tad hesitated for a moment, deciding. The business was a way station for goods, with a few desks in one corner for the clerks who arranged the transportation and storage. The rear of the building adjoined the Black Rose inn, whose front opened onto another street. So much was well-known. Less well-known was the door that the two businesses shared, and that one might be allowed to pass between them for a small fee.
Tad broke into a sprint, dodging a train of six carts pulled by oxen headed Uphill. The brass medallion he wore around his neck kept flying up and knocking him in the face, but he kept moving while keeping as many people as he could between himself and the front door of Loggins & Smitts, just in case someone was watching. Tad tore around the corner, collided with three of the Duke’s men, sketched a hasty apology, then resumed his run.
With the coronation of the new Duke just days away the streets had become nearly impassible with the sheer quantity of stuff being moved through the city, nearly all of it going Uphill. It wasn’t just the official functions that demanded victuals and spirits, it was the entire city. Every room for miles around was rented, every stable was full, and the parties would would doubtless last for days. The street passing by the Black Rose was especially crowded, since it was also the home of eight large inns and five drayage firms.
Tad staked out a spot across the street from the Black Rose, where he could watch the multitude going by without being seen from the inn. After a few minutes he dropped his medallion under his shirt where it would be out of sight, then negotiated with a street vendor for one of her meat pies. If the other boy decided to dull his pain with drink, Tad could be waiting for a while, and he didn’t want to be distracted.
On their first day in town, Mr. Brightstar had given Tad the conspicuous medalion to wear attached to a thin iron chain, an insignia that let people know for whom he worked. At least twice a day someone asked Tad what it was like working for the fabulous Mr. Brightstar ("Mostly uncomfortable, sir. We're always out-of-doors."), or if he had seen the ruins of Old Nychanter ("That was before he took me in."), or the Dwarven caves of the Great Stair ("Yes mam, but Mr. Brightstar isn't so sure they were made by Dwarves. He's writing a book on the subject.")
In the mornings, Tad fetched breakfast and bought a news sheet from the girl around the corner. He and Nolan Brightstar would eat together in their chambers while Tad gave a full reciting of the previous day's activities. Mr. Brightstar wanted to know the name of every person Tad had met, what they were wearing, what they had been doing, what had been discuseed. Mr. Brightstar asked the names of the streets Tad had walked along the day before, what houses and shops were there, and even small details like the presence (or lack thereof) of footmen or carriages or horses in front of the larger residences. When Tad ran errands that took him indoors, his master wanted detailed floorplans and a count of how many people were inside, their descriptions, and where they had stood.
Every day was like a contest to see how much more information he could cram into an increasingly crowded skull. Mr. Brightstar had paid for Tad to attend a fighting school every morning, where he learned alongside boys near his own age. Afterwards he exercised the horses, then got himself cleaned up for his book lessons. Those were either numbers at the local Arcanist academy, or histories taught by a priest, or drawing taught by a nice lady who was related to a Baron, depending on the day. In the early evenings, if there weren’t many errands to run, there was time to sit in the nearly-empty common room and listen to the musicians practice before the Dog & Peonie began to fill up. If the day's troubadour was friendly, Tad could even pick up a free music lesson.
At night he would attend his master's table, feeling conspicuous in his black jacket and brass insignia. Sometimes they dined in the Dog & Peonie, but often they were guests at some great house in the palace district, or a gambling hall, or in far less savory inns in the lower city. His master alternately plied his hosts and fellow guests with wine and stories, and then pried them with questions about anything they were willing to talk about.
The other article Mr. Brightstar had given Tad on their arrival in Corak was a purse of coins, just coppers of course, and told him that however much he had left at the end of the day, he could keep for himself. This had proved to be much, much harder than it sounded. On the first day, Tad didn't even make it two blocks from the inn before realizing his purse was gone. Every day his master gave him a new purse, and every day Tad tried to guard it while he went about the city.
After a few days in the city Tad decided that every pickpocket in Corak was intent on taking his scant few coppers. They bumped him at street corners, snuck up behind him when he was watching parades, slipped their hands into his jacket at fighting school, and followed him into shops when he ran errands. It was a contest that ran from dawn to dawn, eight bells a day, and it only got worse as Tad got better. Girls who were pretty were especially suspect. More often than not a strange girl who needed help lifting something heavy had nearby a partner with a knife who would try to cut Tad's purse away while his hands were occupied.
On his first day of success Tad bought two things with his winnings. The first was a handful of candied nuts he had seen in the market and secretly wanted to try. The other was a second-hand money-belt. Every morning thereafter, when Mr. Brightstar gave him his daily allowance, Tad would transfer most of it to the belt which he wore close to the skin underneath his clothes, and put just enough coins into the more obvious purse to make it jingle. Then he added some sharp bits of crockery.
Soon after that first heady day of success, things got even more difficult for Tad on the streets of Corak. People weren’t just trying to gently lift his purse without him knowing, they were nearly mugging him. Tad started walking with one hand on his purse all the time. On one errand to the stationer’s, Tad barely escaped being pulled into an alleyway by a man with dirty hands and putrid breath. So a few minutes later, inside the stationer’s, when a hand strayed too close to his purse, Thaddius reacted violently and without thinking: he backfisted an older curly-haired boy so hard that his nose instantly sprayed blood all over the stationer’s samples.
The would-be pickpocket stumbled backwards until he fell flat on his behind, and the two boys stared at each other in mutual shock. Tad didn’t know what to make of the fact that he had so casually hurt another person, and the older boy couldn’t believe he’d been hurt by someone so much smaller. Then the kid with the broken nose was up and out of the shop in a blink, with Tad close behind him.
The curly-haired boy, or just Curly as Tad decided to think of him, sprinted along the promenade between the upper city and the wall around the Palace district. The avenue was clear this time of day, and Curly’s longer legs took him far ahead of Tad. When he neared one of the heavily guarded gates, Curly suddenly turned Downhill and raced towards the pricey Overlook, the part of the upper city that afforded wealthy denizens a view of the distant Yeron river. The two of them had to dodge carriages and carts and hordes of people, but Curly was attracting too much attention. A teenage boy in coarse laborer’s garb bleeding profusely from the face stood out, while Tad’s silk shirt and good boots marked him as someone who might belong there. A cry went out as men recognized him for someone dangerous and swept their women and children into the nearest doorways of the neatly packed stone buildings. Tad slowed down his pursuit, to see if someone would show up in the Silver and Black livery of the Duke’s men, but Curly must have been thinking the same thing. He turned West again and headed back towards the Market, taking every other street Downhill.
Tad nearly lost him when he took to the rooftops. Close to the wall that separates the Upper city from the Lower city, Curly ducked into a four-story residence building and didn’t come out again. After a few agonizing minutes circling the block, Tad realized where his prey must have gone, and sprinted for the nearest gate through the wall. He lost more precious minutes looking for a trail, but he found it: several drops of blood on a line of white linen hung out to dry, two stories above the ground. Curly had used the rooftops and the top of the defensive wall to cross from the Upper city to the Lower. Hoping Curly was feeling confident and slowing down, Tad moved two blocks Downhill and repeated his search, only this time he found a trail of fresh blood at ground level.
From there, Curly had made an almost straight line Downhill until he reached the Depths, a district surrounded by a twenty-foot wall and sunk in a blue haze from the Duke’s smeltworks. Silver ore went into the Depths, and the Throne’s coinage came out, so that section of the city had its own impressive defenses and alert guards. Curly wisely skirted it until he could head further West into the Bottom proper.
Tad followed Curly through neighborhoods of overcrowded tenement buildings that might fall down at any moment, which butted up against the hundreds of untidy places where people did the dirtiest work of the city. At the west end of the Bottom they entered the caravan district, where gods and travelers first entered the city from the River Road. And that was where Thaddius Poole, sweating through his good silk shirt, cooled his heels across the street from the Black Rose for over an hour.
From his vantage point in the shadow of the pie-seller’s stall, he could see all the races and of Aspera on display. Aside from the mostly human population of Corak there were half-sized humans, like Mr. Brightstar, trying hard not to be trampled or mistaken for children. Even smaller than the half-sized were the gnomish, who claimed their own distinct heritage, and who invariably carried books wherever they went. Impossibly broad dwarves, most of them miners or builders sporting their famously complex beards, shouldered their way through the throngs in the street. Tad wondered why, for about the dozenth time, he never saw dwarven women. He saw only one elf, whom he knew to be a jewel trader, enter a boarding house of the cheapest possible variety. The elf emerged several minutes later with another, very dirty and besotten-looking, elf in tow. The gem merchant poured the less fourtunate elf into a carriage and directed the driver to head Uphill.
A small knot of arcanists in expensive robes and wide-brimmed hats emerged from a warehouse down the street and stood in a close circle, conferring. Something about Academy training taught people not to emote much, so Tad couldn’t tell if it was a friendly “where do we eat dinner” huddle, or an anxious “our shipment didn’t arrive on time” huddle. The one with the staff would be a Magi, and certainly the ranking member of the group. Thaddius committed the man’s face to memory, and kept an eye on the group until they sauntered out of sight as if they owned the whole street.
By the time Curly left the Black Rose he wasn’t bleeding, but he was weaving slightly as he headed west for a few blocks and then turned Uphill. Curly might be less than sober, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. Tad flagged down a carriage and spent too many of his hard-earned coppers to have the driver follow him. Well into the upper city, the driver pulled his horse to a sudden stop and rapped on the hood.
And there, across the street, was the boy Tad had punched, face to face with Mr. Brightstar. They were apparently acquainted enough to argue. Curly was pointing angrily at his own nose, then slapped the back of one hand into the palm of another -- the local handspeak for payment. Nolan said something Tad couldn’t hear, but made a brushing motion with his right hand over his hip which, loosely translated, meant “you’re asking for too much money”. The boy gestured emphatically at his nose, which spoke for itself. Even from across the street it was clearly crooked.
Mr. Brightstar reached up to the Curly’s nose and, under guise of examining it, suddenly grabbed hold of it with the heels of both hands and straightened it with a merciless jerk. Tad winced in sympathy and Curly screamed so loud that the entire street came to complete standstill. Everyone looked towards the well-dressed halfsie and the human boy kneeling at his feet in misery. “Here’s two silver for your trouble,” said Mr. Brightstar, tossing a couple of shiny coins at the boy’s feet, “and your nose is straight again. Consider that a bonus.”
Tad resolved two things. First, he wasn’t going to feel bad about hurting his tormentors if they were being paid for their trouble. Second, he would have to be more suspicious of his master.
Tad broke into a sprint, dodging a train of six carts pulled by oxen headed Uphill. The brass medallion he wore around his neck kept flying up and knocking him in the face, but he kept moving while keeping as many people as he could between himself and the front door of Loggins & Smitts, just in case someone was watching. Tad tore around the corner, collided with three of the Duke’s men, sketched a hasty apology, then resumed his run.
With the coronation of the new Duke just days away the streets had become nearly impassible with the sheer quantity of stuff being moved through the city, nearly all of it going Uphill. It wasn’t just the official functions that demanded victuals and spirits, it was the entire city. Every room for miles around was rented, every stable was full, and the parties would would doubtless last for days. The street passing by the Black Rose was especially crowded, since it was also the home of eight large inns and five drayage firms.
Tad staked out a spot across the street from the Black Rose, where he could watch the multitude going by without being seen from the inn. After a few minutes he dropped his medallion under his shirt where it would be out of sight, then negotiated with a street vendor for one of her meat pies. If the other boy decided to dull his pain with drink, Tad could be waiting for a while, and he didn’t want to be distracted.
On their first day in town, Mr. Brightstar had given Tad the conspicuous medalion to wear attached to a thin iron chain, an insignia that let people know for whom he worked. At least twice a day someone asked Tad what it was like working for the fabulous Mr. Brightstar ("Mostly uncomfortable, sir. We're always out-of-doors."), or if he had seen the ruins of Old Nychanter ("That was before he took me in."), or the Dwarven caves of the Great Stair ("Yes mam, but Mr. Brightstar isn't so sure they were made by Dwarves. He's writing a book on the subject.")
In the mornings, Tad fetched breakfast and bought a news sheet from the girl around the corner. He and Nolan Brightstar would eat together in their chambers while Tad gave a full reciting of the previous day's activities. Mr. Brightstar wanted to know the name of every person Tad had met, what they were wearing, what they had been doing, what had been discuseed. Mr. Brightstar asked the names of the streets Tad had walked along the day before, what houses and shops were there, and even small details like the presence (or lack thereof) of footmen or carriages or horses in front of the larger residences. When Tad ran errands that took him indoors, his master wanted detailed floorplans and a count of how many people were inside, their descriptions, and where they had stood.
Every day was like a contest to see how much more information he could cram into an increasingly crowded skull. Mr. Brightstar had paid for Tad to attend a fighting school every morning, where he learned alongside boys near his own age. Afterwards he exercised the horses, then got himself cleaned up for his book lessons. Those were either numbers at the local Arcanist academy, or histories taught by a priest, or drawing taught by a nice lady who was related to a Baron, depending on the day. In the early evenings, if there weren’t many errands to run, there was time to sit in the nearly-empty common room and listen to the musicians practice before the Dog & Peonie began to fill up. If the day's troubadour was friendly, Tad could even pick up a free music lesson.
At night he would attend his master's table, feeling conspicuous in his black jacket and brass insignia. Sometimes they dined in the Dog & Peonie, but often they were guests at some great house in the palace district, or a gambling hall, or in far less savory inns in the lower city. His master alternately plied his hosts and fellow guests with wine and stories, and then pried them with questions about anything they were willing to talk about.
The other article Mr. Brightstar had given Tad on their arrival in Corak was a purse of coins, just coppers of course, and told him that however much he had left at the end of the day, he could keep for himself. This had proved to be much, much harder than it sounded. On the first day, Tad didn't even make it two blocks from the inn before realizing his purse was gone. Every day his master gave him a new purse, and every day Tad tried to guard it while he went about the city.
After a few days in the city Tad decided that every pickpocket in Corak was intent on taking his scant few coppers. They bumped him at street corners, snuck up behind him when he was watching parades, slipped their hands into his jacket at fighting school, and followed him into shops when he ran errands. It was a contest that ran from dawn to dawn, eight bells a day, and it only got worse as Tad got better. Girls who were pretty were especially suspect. More often than not a strange girl who needed help lifting something heavy had nearby a partner with a knife who would try to cut Tad's purse away while his hands were occupied.
On his first day of success Tad bought two things with his winnings. The first was a handful of candied nuts he had seen in the market and secretly wanted to try. The other was a second-hand money-belt. Every morning thereafter, when Mr. Brightstar gave him his daily allowance, Tad would transfer most of it to the belt which he wore close to the skin underneath his clothes, and put just enough coins into the more obvious purse to make it jingle. Then he added some sharp bits of crockery.
Soon after that first heady day of success, things got even more difficult for Tad on the streets of Corak. People weren’t just trying to gently lift his purse without him knowing, they were nearly mugging him. Tad started walking with one hand on his purse all the time. On one errand to the stationer’s, Tad barely escaped being pulled into an alleyway by a man with dirty hands and putrid breath. So a few minutes later, inside the stationer’s, when a hand strayed too close to his purse, Thaddius reacted violently and without thinking: he backfisted an older curly-haired boy so hard that his nose instantly sprayed blood all over the stationer’s samples.
The would-be pickpocket stumbled backwards until he fell flat on his behind, and the two boys stared at each other in mutual shock. Tad didn’t know what to make of the fact that he had so casually hurt another person, and the older boy couldn’t believe he’d been hurt by someone so much smaller. Then the kid with the broken nose was up and out of the shop in a blink, with Tad close behind him.
The curly-haired boy, or just Curly as Tad decided to think of him, sprinted along the promenade between the upper city and the wall around the Palace district. The avenue was clear this time of day, and Curly’s longer legs took him far ahead of Tad. When he neared one of the heavily guarded gates, Curly suddenly turned Downhill and raced towards the pricey Overlook, the part of the upper city that afforded wealthy denizens a view of the distant Yeron river. The two of them had to dodge carriages and carts and hordes of people, but Curly was attracting too much attention. A teenage boy in coarse laborer’s garb bleeding profusely from the face stood out, while Tad’s silk shirt and good boots marked him as someone who might belong there. A cry went out as men recognized him for someone dangerous and swept their women and children into the nearest doorways of the neatly packed stone buildings. Tad slowed down his pursuit, to see if someone would show up in the Silver and Black livery of the Duke’s men, but Curly must have been thinking the same thing. He turned West again and headed back towards the Market, taking every other street Downhill.
Tad nearly lost him when he took to the rooftops. Close to the wall that separates the Upper city from the Lower city, Curly ducked into a four-story residence building and didn’t come out again. After a few agonizing minutes circling the block, Tad realized where his prey must have gone, and sprinted for the nearest gate through the wall. He lost more precious minutes looking for a trail, but he found it: several drops of blood on a line of white linen hung out to dry, two stories above the ground. Curly had used the rooftops and the top of the defensive wall to cross from the Upper city to the Lower. Hoping Curly was feeling confident and slowing down, Tad moved two blocks Downhill and repeated his search, only this time he found a trail of fresh blood at ground level.
From there, Curly had made an almost straight line Downhill until he reached the Depths, a district surrounded by a twenty-foot wall and sunk in a blue haze from the Duke’s smeltworks. Silver ore went into the Depths, and the Throne’s coinage came out, so that section of the city had its own impressive defenses and alert guards. Curly wisely skirted it until he could head further West into the Bottom proper.
Tad followed Curly through neighborhoods of overcrowded tenement buildings that might fall down at any moment, which butted up against the hundreds of untidy places where people did the dirtiest work of the city. At the west end of the Bottom they entered the caravan district, where gods and travelers first entered the city from the River Road. And that was where Thaddius Poole, sweating through his good silk shirt, cooled his heels across the street from the Black Rose for over an hour.
From his vantage point in the shadow of the pie-seller’s stall, he could see all the races and of Aspera on display. Aside from the mostly human population of Corak there were half-sized humans, like Mr. Brightstar, trying hard not to be trampled or mistaken for children. Even smaller than the half-sized were the gnomish, who claimed their own distinct heritage, and who invariably carried books wherever they went. Impossibly broad dwarves, most of them miners or builders sporting their famously complex beards, shouldered their way through the throngs in the street. Tad wondered why, for about the dozenth time, he never saw dwarven women. He saw only one elf, whom he knew to be a jewel trader, enter a boarding house of the cheapest possible variety. The elf emerged several minutes later with another, very dirty and besotten-looking, elf in tow. The gem merchant poured the less fourtunate elf into a carriage and directed the driver to head Uphill.
A small knot of arcanists in expensive robes and wide-brimmed hats emerged from a warehouse down the street and stood in a close circle, conferring. Something about Academy training taught people not to emote much, so Tad couldn’t tell if it was a friendly “where do we eat dinner” huddle, or an anxious “our shipment didn’t arrive on time” huddle. The one with the staff would be a Magi, and certainly the ranking member of the group. Thaddius committed the man’s face to memory, and kept an eye on the group until they sauntered out of sight as if they owned the whole street.
By the time Curly left the Black Rose he wasn’t bleeding, but he was weaving slightly as he headed west for a few blocks and then turned Uphill. Curly might be less than sober, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. Tad flagged down a carriage and spent too many of his hard-earned coppers to have the driver follow him. Well into the upper city, the driver pulled his horse to a sudden stop and rapped on the hood.
And there, across the street, was the boy Tad had punched, face to face with Mr. Brightstar. They were apparently acquainted enough to argue. Curly was pointing angrily at his own nose, then slapped the back of one hand into the palm of another -- the local handspeak for payment. Nolan said something Tad couldn’t hear, but made a brushing motion with his right hand over his hip which, loosely translated, meant “you’re asking for too much money”. The boy gestured emphatically at his nose, which spoke for itself. Even from across the street it was clearly crooked.
Mr. Brightstar reached up to the Curly’s nose and, under guise of examining it, suddenly grabbed hold of it with the heels of both hands and straightened it with a merciless jerk. Tad winced in sympathy and Curly screamed so loud that the entire street came to complete standstill. Everyone looked towards the well-dressed halfsie and the human boy kneeling at his feet in misery. “Here’s two silver for your trouble,” said Mr. Brightstar, tossing a couple of shiny coins at the boy’s feet, “and your nose is straight again. Consider that a bonus.”
Tad resolved two things. First, he wasn’t going to feel bad about hurting his tormentors if they were being paid for their trouble. Second, he would have to be more suspicious of his master.
Monday, June 8, 2009
2: Views
“You’ve never been in a big city have you boy?” All Tad could do was shake his head while his eyes struggled to take in the enormity of Corak. “It just looks like a hill from here, but it’s really more like a finger sticking up out of the ground. They call it the Sauvine, because on the other side is a sheer drop-off. Good for defense.” Mr. Brightstar pointed to the massive dome at the top of the city, overlooking everything like a full moon rising. “That grand edifice there is the Duke’s palace. Don’t let the pretty outside fool you, it’s a fortress as much as a palace. Never been taken by arms. And those mountains you see beyond are the Silver Hills. Most of the king’s coinage is dug out of there.”
Even from miles away the city looked impossibly huge to Tad. He tried hard to imagine the tens upon tens of thousands of people who supposedly lived there, moving and working and sleeping all in a few square miles of land, but he just couldn’t see it. What did they all eat? What did they all do for work? Did they spend hours each day learning each others’ names so they could say a proper hello in the streets? How many names could one person reasonably learn? He pondered these and many similar mysteries all through the noon break, when he was supposed to be studying his numbers.
He was thinking up questions all through the afternoon while Anamogea was trying to teach him the Legends of Sammit. Tad was so wrapped up in thinking about the people’s waste ( How much did a city this size produce? Where did it all go?) that he nearly fell off his pony whenever the old bard gave him a swat to regain his attention. “Your master is paying good money for this history lesson, you should be more grateful!” But the distant sight of Corak didn’t leave enough room in Tad’s brain for anything else to take root.
The next night the caravan made camp almost within the glow of Corak’s lights, crowned by the massive palace dome that shone so brightly it rivaled the moon. They had passed a great number of farms and inns along the road, but the late summer nights were friendly enough to sleep out-of-doors. Villheim, the heavily armed caravan master, had pulled the wagons onto one of the wide byways that the Throne maintained along the River Road.
Within a stone’s throw of the caravan was an elven encampment. The elves had set poles around their camp and strung sheets of striped cloth between them to shield their tents from outsiders. Tad had heard people call elves “points”, “ears”, “greenies”, “vagabonds”, and all kinds of less-savory names. But the only elves he had ever seen worked and dressed as laborers and, apart from their slim stature and odd features, they didn’t seem so different from humans. Tad knew they traveled in groups throughout Aspera to work the harvests, pick herbs from the forests, and trade in exotic goods. During the winters they went west over the Great Stair and into their desert homelands. But these elves weren’t in the usual menial working garb. Instead they wore loose robe-like clothes, mostly in deep green, embroidered with silvery thread and decorated with reddish stones. The men and women alike had silk cloth wrapped around their heads, with a loose end draped across their faces like veils.
Tad had thought the elves would be unfriendly, but the horses were barely unharnessed when two of them, a man and a woman, emerged from behind the barrier and crossed the space between the two camps. They walked sedately, close enough together for their shoulders to occasionally touch, in a straight line for caravan master Vallheim. As they neared the dwarf they removed the cloth from their faces. Vallheim, in turn, held up his hands at chest level, palms out. Since the balding Vallheim habitually wore a short sword, a brace of throwing knives, and kept a crossbow nearby, Tad supposed the gesture was meant to assure the elves that he wasn’t hostile. The boy watched from behind a draft horse while the elves and the caravan master exchanged gifts and spoke together in what must have been the elven language.
“At least pretend to brush the horse while you stare, boy!” Mr. Brightstar had, once again, snuck up on Tad and surprised him while he wasn’t working. “And a word to the wise: if you want to hear any music tonight then you had best get your chores done quickly. And clean yourself up. And put on your good clothes.” The little man walked into the grasses around the camp and simply disappeared, but his voice still floated back to Tad. “And don’t strain your neck staring at them. I’m not fighting any duels over you.”
The horses groomed, the food served, the dishes cleaned, and himself washed and dressed in a clean white shirt and breeches, Tad was admitted to the festivities. He couldn’t say why he wanted to go so badly; maybe it was just because Mr. Brightstar had hinted it was a treat. Over a dozen elves were camping behind the screen, and they all came out to share drink and news with the twenty caravan travelers, but what the elves seemed to enjoy the most was trading songs with Anamogea.
A thin sliver of moon was just appearing over the horizon when someone poured something fiery and fruity into Tad’s cup. Singing was giving way to wild strings and drums and a guitar that made him imagine horses running through the long summer grass, chasing the clouds or racing the waters of the Great Yeron. In the midst of a reeling elf tune, an elven girl grabbed Tad's hand and he was suddenly dancing. He just tried to do what the elven men did, turning and spinning and sometimes jumping. It was free and wildly exciting and he wasn’t afraid.
Tad kept dancing until he couldn’t tell if he was the one doing the spinning, or if he was standing still and the rest of the world was turning around him. Every time the fire pit swooped past him, he would dance along it’s edge even as the flame grew huge. His partner was a pretty girl who could have been his own age (but who could tell with elves?) and whose eyes had turned into pools of silver like little twin moons. She was laughing at him he laughed back at her.
Exactly when his hair caught on fire, Tad couldn’t say.
Even from miles away the city looked impossibly huge to Tad. He tried hard to imagine the tens upon tens of thousands of people who supposedly lived there, moving and working and sleeping all in a few square miles of land, but he just couldn’t see it. What did they all eat? What did they all do for work? Did they spend hours each day learning each others’ names so they could say a proper hello in the streets? How many names could one person reasonably learn? He pondered these and many similar mysteries all through the noon break, when he was supposed to be studying his numbers.
He was thinking up questions all through the afternoon while Anamogea was trying to teach him the Legends of Sammit. Tad was so wrapped up in thinking about the people’s waste ( How much did a city this size produce? Where did it all go?) that he nearly fell off his pony whenever the old bard gave him a swat to regain his attention. “Your master is paying good money for this history lesson, you should be more grateful!” But the distant sight of Corak didn’t leave enough room in Tad’s brain for anything else to take root.
The next night the caravan made camp almost within the glow of Corak’s lights, crowned by the massive palace dome that shone so brightly it rivaled the moon. They had passed a great number of farms and inns along the road, but the late summer nights were friendly enough to sleep out-of-doors. Villheim, the heavily armed caravan master, had pulled the wagons onto one of the wide byways that the Throne maintained along the River Road.
Within a stone’s throw of the caravan was an elven encampment. The elves had set poles around their camp and strung sheets of striped cloth between them to shield their tents from outsiders. Tad had heard people call elves “points”, “ears”, “greenies”, “vagabonds”, and all kinds of less-savory names. But the only elves he had ever seen worked and dressed as laborers and, apart from their slim stature and odd features, they didn’t seem so different from humans. Tad knew they traveled in groups throughout Aspera to work the harvests, pick herbs from the forests, and trade in exotic goods. During the winters they went west over the Great Stair and into their desert homelands. But these elves weren’t in the usual menial working garb. Instead they wore loose robe-like clothes, mostly in deep green, embroidered with silvery thread and decorated with reddish stones. The men and women alike had silk cloth wrapped around their heads, with a loose end draped across their faces like veils.
Tad had thought the elves would be unfriendly, but the horses were barely unharnessed when two of them, a man and a woman, emerged from behind the barrier and crossed the space between the two camps. They walked sedately, close enough together for their shoulders to occasionally touch, in a straight line for caravan master Vallheim. As they neared the dwarf they removed the cloth from their faces. Vallheim, in turn, held up his hands at chest level, palms out. Since the balding Vallheim habitually wore a short sword, a brace of throwing knives, and kept a crossbow nearby, Tad supposed the gesture was meant to assure the elves that he wasn’t hostile. The boy watched from behind a draft horse while the elves and the caravan master exchanged gifts and spoke together in what must have been the elven language.
“At least pretend to brush the horse while you stare, boy!” Mr. Brightstar had, once again, snuck up on Tad and surprised him while he wasn’t working. “And a word to the wise: if you want to hear any music tonight then you had best get your chores done quickly. And clean yourself up. And put on your good clothes.” The little man walked into the grasses around the camp and simply disappeared, but his voice still floated back to Tad. “And don’t strain your neck staring at them. I’m not fighting any duels over you.”
The horses groomed, the food served, the dishes cleaned, and himself washed and dressed in a clean white shirt and breeches, Tad was admitted to the festivities. He couldn’t say why he wanted to go so badly; maybe it was just because Mr. Brightstar had hinted it was a treat. Over a dozen elves were camping behind the screen, and they all came out to share drink and news with the twenty caravan travelers, but what the elves seemed to enjoy the most was trading songs with Anamogea.
A thin sliver of moon was just appearing over the horizon when someone poured something fiery and fruity into Tad’s cup. Singing was giving way to wild strings and drums and a guitar that made him imagine horses running through the long summer grass, chasing the clouds or racing the waters of the Great Yeron. In the midst of a reeling elf tune, an elven girl grabbed Tad's hand and he was suddenly dancing. He just tried to do what the elven men did, turning and spinning and sometimes jumping. It was free and wildly exciting and he wasn’t afraid.
Tad kept dancing until he couldn’t tell if he was the one doing the spinning, or if he was standing still and the rest of the world was turning around him. Every time the fire pit swooped past him, he would dance along it’s edge even as the flame grew huge. His partner was a pretty girl who could have been his own age (but who could tell with elves?) and whose eyes had turned into pools of silver like little twin moons. She was laughing at him he laughed back at her.
Exactly when his hair caught on fire, Tad couldn’t say.
Friday, June 5, 2009
1: Nightfall
Thaddius Poole, called “Tad” by those who knew the boy, watched apprehensively as the sun sank into the Angsul forest. Of all the days and nights of all the spheres, the night without Lunos was always the worst. The larger of the two moons watched over the dead, and without it some of the recently departed would forsake their dreamless sleep and take to walking around. And the walking dead were invariably hungry.
As if losing a loved one wasn’t painful enough, sometimes you had to put them into the ground again. Tad remembered his own mom and dad, whom he had buried only a few turns of Lunos prior, scraping at the wards around his window calling him to join them well before his time. If Nolan hadn’t been there to ... do what had been necessary, Tad might have gone out to them. For the hundredth time he thought, “Maybe I should have let them take me. In a few minutes it would have been over. How long can it take to get eaten?”
It couldn’t possibly take as long as his current ordeal, or be near as painful. Tad’s lord and master, a “gentleman explorer” named Nolan Brightstar, was enjoying a commissioned piece of music celebrating his latest achievement: killing a werewolf. “You need to make him more vicious! Werewolves are terrifying beasts that’ll eat anyone who gets in their way! And the sword has to be silver. You forgot the silver.”
The bard and songwriter, either through some miracle of patience or by meditating on how much silver he was getting paid, didn’t even roll his eyes as he started work on a new verse describing the horribleness of the beast, and then reworked the final verse to make the climatic fight more climatic. But Tad had a very different recollection of the event. In his memory he saw a graying man, clothes ragged from a night chasing gods-knew-what in the forest, exhausted and half-asleep, stumbling through the doorway of his home. He was impossibly hairy and long in the tooth, but probably looking forward to his bed. And there behind the man’s door stood another man, half his size but with a gleaming silver dagger in hand. The werewolf didn’t see the first blow coming, and afterwards he didn’t have the strength to fight. When it was finally over Nolan had just mumbled something about it being “a bit messier than strictly necessary”. Neither Tad nor Nolan had said a word about the killing since, until Nolan had found someone to write a song about it.
“Tad,” called Nolan, “fetch some water and help with the cleanup.” Tad didn’t mind helping Nordaleen, the caravan’s cook. She reminded him of his dead grandmother, the way she busied herself (and others) efficiently with the cooking, and then spent the rest of the day contentedly smoking her pipe while riding up front on the wagon next to Vallheim. At night she let Tad lay out his bedroll next to her, and when he woke up afraid at night she would stroke his hair.
But he didn’t belong to Nordaleen. He belonged to the “gentleman adventurer” Mr. Nolan Brightstar, the half-sized man who took him into dark underground places, visited wayside taverns inhabited by rough and scary people, made him sleep in wild places where the wolves howled until Tad sweat in fear. Some nights he couldn’t believe he didn’t get eaten right up. In the four months since he had been indentured, he couldn’t remember ever feeling safe at night, and not even Nordaleen’s matronly arms seemed able to fix that.
Tad tried to remember any time in his twelve summers that he had ever been afraid, before the trolls had come. He knew there had to have been times when he was unhappy or mad at his parents or afraid of something, but now there was a dark wall between him and that other life. On one side of the wall he had had parents and grandparents and an uncle and several aunts and was just starting to learn a trade in weaving. The old Tad had hated it, being forced into a trade he didn’t want. But the new Tad, the one living on this side of the wall, envied him. As the night took a firm hold of him, the boy doubted his chances of seeing another summer. He had a fantasy that, in some quick and surprising way, he would be killed and he could rejoin his family in the worlds beyond the Veil.
As if losing a loved one wasn’t painful enough, sometimes you had to put them into the ground again. Tad remembered his own mom and dad, whom he had buried only a few turns of Lunos prior, scraping at the wards around his window calling him to join them well before his time. If Nolan hadn’t been there to ... do what had been necessary, Tad might have gone out to them. For the hundredth time he thought, “Maybe I should have let them take me. In a few minutes it would have been over. How long can it take to get eaten?”
It couldn’t possibly take as long as his current ordeal, or be near as painful. Tad’s lord and master, a “gentleman explorer” named Nolan Brightstar, was enjoying a commissioned piece of music celebrating his latest achievement: killing a werewolf. “You need to make him more vicious! Werewolves are terrifying beasts that’ll eat anyone who gets in their way! And the sword has to be silver. You forgot the silver.”
The bard and songwriter, either through some miracle of patience or by meditating on how much silver he was getting paid, didn’t even roll his eyes as he started work on a new verse describing the horribleness of the beast, and then reworked the final verse to make the climatic fight more climatic. But Tad had a very different recollection of the event. In his memory he saw a graying man, clothes ragged from a night chasing gods-knew-what in the forest, exhausted and half-asleep, stumbling through the doorway of his home. He was impossibly hairy and long in the tooth, but probably looking forward to his bed. And there behind the man’s door stood another man, half his size but with a gleaming silver dagger in hand. The werewolf didn’t see the first blow coming, and afterwards he didn’t have the strength to fight. When it was finally over Nolan had just mumbled something about it being “a bit messier than strictly necessary”. Neither Tad nor Nolan had said a word about the killing since, until Nolan had found someone to write a song about it.
“Tad,” called Nolan, “fetch some water and help with the cleanup.” Tad didn’t mind helping Nordaleen, the caravan’s cook. She reminded him of his dead grandmother, the way she busied herself (and others) efficiently with the cooking, and then spent the rest of the day contentedly smoking her pipe while riding up front on the wagon next to Vallheim. At night she let Tad lay out his bedroll next to her, and when he woke up afraid at night she would stroke his hair.
But he didn’t belong to Nordaleen. He belonged to the “gentleman adventurer” Mr. Nolan Brightstar, the half-sized man who took him into dark underground places, visited wayside taverns inhabited by rough and scary people, made him sleep in wild places where the wolves howled until Tad sweat in fear. Some nights he couldn’t believe he didn’t get eaten right up. In the four months since he had been indentured, he couldn’t remember ever feeling safe at night, and not even Nordaleen’s matronly arms seemed able to fix that.
Tad tried to remember any time in his twelve summers that he had ever been afraid, before the trolls had come. He knew there had to have been times when he was unhappy or mad at his parents or afraid of something, but now there was a dark wall between him and that other life. On one side of the wall he had had parents and grandparents and an uncle and several aunts and was just starting to learn a trade in weaving. The old Tad had hated it, being forced into a trade he didn’t want. But the new Tad, the one living on this side of the wall, envied him. As the night took a firm hold of him, the boy doubted his chances of seeing another summer. He had a fantasy that, in some quick and surprising way, he would be killed and he could rejoin his family in the worlds beyond the Veil.
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