Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (36 page)

“I painted it from memory. I see the Katamic often
enough that I know its look, and then I just painted it the way I saw the storm
change it. I actually ran in as soon as the heavy rains blew in.” She laughed.
“That whole painting would have been naught but a blur if I had kept it out in
that downpour.”

The painting was mostly greys and dark blues, showing
the Katamic at its angriest. Waves broke against the rocky point north of the
city, where the lighthouse sat, overlooking the harbor. Kyrus remembered the
storm, some two years earlier, and had spent much of the night with Ash curled
up in his lap, terrified. Halfway through the storm, the wind had blown in the
shutters on one of the windows, and he and Davin had scrambled to find a way to
secure it again. They had lost a lot of the papers they had been working on to
the windblown rain that came in, and they did not see Ash until the following
morning, when they found him hidden in the back of one of the pantry cupboards.

“It is amazing. You would swear this was a window,
overlooking the storm,” Kyrus commented.

He could make out the brush strokes when he looked
closely enough, but from a step or two back, it looked so real he would have
expected to get his hand wet touching it. He certainly would not have wished to
trade places with the lighthouse keeper than night.

Abbiley set the painting back down against the wall,
next to the rest of her works. She had no gallery to show them off, so simply
kept them propped against the walls when they were finished. She had nearly a
dozen of them. On occasion, someone would purchase one, supplying Abbiley and
her brother with a bit of extra income, but these were the ones that still
awaited a buyer—if they were ever to have one.

Kyrus walked over to another and knelt by it. “Who is
this?” he asked.

“That is Neelan, my brother. I painted it years ago.
It does not look so much like him as it used to.”

The painting showed a lad of perhaps eight years,
perched on a stool with his hands folded in his lap. He looked stiff and
sullen, his posture too straight to appear relaxed, and no smile on his serious
little face.

“It looks as if he was an unwilling subject.” Kyrus
smiled.

“You know not the half of it. I was still practicing
at portraits, hoping to be skilled enough at it to feed us. It was all I could
do to keep the rascal in one spot. At one point. I threatened to bring the
cooper over from next door and nail him to that stool.” Abbiley laughed. “I
have yet to get him back onto that stool, though nowadays I would say I do not
need the practice as I once did.”

“So where is your brother? I would much like to meet
him.”

“Oh, someday you will, to be sure. He may have grown
since that portrait, but only in size. I cannot keep him under one roof. When
he was little, I could make him behave, but now he is bigger than I am, and
less afeared of a whipping if he causes trouble,” Abbiley said.

“So what does he do all day while you work?” Kyrus
asked, genuinely curious.

“‘Odd jobs,’ he says. Helping haul crates and unload
fishing boats down at the piers, helping foreign merchants set up carts and
stalls in the market, making deliveries, that sort of thing. He brings in
coins, but I wonder where they really come from. I doubt he does half what he
claims.”

“Have you any worry of him getting mixed up with
lawless sorts?”

“Oh, plenty of worries, but he is not a bad boy. I
think he just feels like he ought to help put food on our table rather than
just eating it.”

“Have you thought of finding him an apprenticeship? I
think a lot of boys just need someone to keep them on a narrow path, and a good
tradesman should be able to manage that.”

Kyrus hoped he was not overstepping his bounds.
Abbiley had been raising the boy for years, and he had never even met him.

“Oh, to be certain, but he is a willful one. I expect
they will make a merchant out of him one of these days, though I am not sure
what type he would be,” she said with a wink.

Kyrus let the matter drop and wandered among the rest
of the paintings. There was a vase of flowers depicted in one—the sort of
things one would expect any younger painter to try a hand at. There were more
landscapes, which seemed to be Abbiley’s specialty—a shame since it did not pay
as well as portrait painting.

“Is this one a self-portrait?” Kyrus asked, pointing
to the last painting, near the far corner of the studio.

It was a remarkable likeness of Abbiley: the eyes were
the same deep blue, the cheeks had the pretty little dimples as she smiled, the
hair the right color, but styled somewhat differently, though Kyrus knew little
enough of women’s fashion that he could not put a name to the difference. Her
hair was shorter than in the painting; that much he could say with certainty.
The style of the painting itself was somewhat crude in comparison to the rest.
The brush strokes were a bit more noticeable and the colors perhaps a bit more
vibrant and less realistic.

“No, though you are not the first to have thought so.
That there is my mum. It is the first one I painted that was worth keeping. She
was the one who taught me to paint, and she sat for a portrait for me. I was
about eleven when I painted that,” Abbiley said.

“Your mother was quite beautiful. The resemblance is
remarkable,” Kyrus said, still looking at the painting.

He thus did not notice the blush that flushed
Abbiley’s cheeks a bright red.

*
* * * * * * *

Abbiley closed up the studio early that day, and she
and Kyrus wandered down to the marketplace. Folks were gathering in larger
numbers than usual, as a large merchant-explorer vessel had returned from an
expedition to the faraway ports to the south and east, bringing exotic wares
back with them. Few had the spare coin to spend on the luxuries they brought,
but just seeing the new and different goods they had in their rented shops and
carts was enough to draw crowds.

Kyrus and Abbiley held hands as they negotiated the
flow of citizens and carts, lest they get separated. Kyrus was not normally one
to go down to the marketplace in the middle of the day, but even he could tell
that there were more people on the streets than was usual.

“Oh, look at that,” Abbiley said. “Those patterns are
stunning.”

Her attention was fixed on a wagon load of silk cloth.
They were all dyed in various colors and designs, with red-gold, blue-green,
purple-black, and a few with colors that seemed to change as you looked at
them—a trick of the way the light caught them.

“Where are these from?” she asked the lean,
dark-skinned gentleman attending the merchandise.

He had a thin face and a long slender nose above a
curled mustache and scraggly chin beard. The expression he wore was serene and
friendly. He wore a long coat in typical Acardian style, but his headdress was
a long piece of purple silk that wrapped several times around and dangled down
to wrap around his neck.

“They from Khesh, my lady,” he said in awkward but
perfectly serviceable Acardian. “You like it, yes? Feel how nice.”

He held the end of one of the bolts out to her and
pressed it into her hands. Kyrus also ran his fingers over it. The fabric was
indeed … well, silky. Abbiley had no doubt never owned anything so luxurious
and could not help but betray her admiration of it.

“Yes, yes, you see now. So soft. Maybe he buy for
you?” the merchant said, looking at Kyrus.

“Um, well. I mean … How much is it?” Kyrus said.

He had never been comfortable haggling in the
marketplace. The world-worn traders that set up shop there seemed to be playing
a game whose rules he did not understand. He could hardly help but feel he was
being played the fool—and he was likely correct.

“For your fine lady, two hundred eckle each arm,” he
told them, and Abbiley gasped slightly, which Kyrus took to mean that was a lot
for fabric. “Good deal. I like see pretty lady wear my silk. It good for
business.”

Kyrus was unsure how the dressmaking profession
worked, but he imagined that it would take two or three arms’ lengths of fabric
to make a dress out of.

“My lady, pick which silk you like. He buy for you.”

As Kyrus struggled for the proper response, Abbiley
took him by the arm. “Oh, Kyrus, no. Those are pretty but I could not wear
anything fancy like that. I would ruin it with paint inside a day. Come on,”
she said, then led him away from the wagon and its presumptuous owner.

“You change mind, I still be here,” he called after
them as they pushed into the crowd and left him behind.

“I just want to look, Kyrus. I do not mean to buy
anything. Everything is so interesting, I just want to feel it and smell it and
hear it all.”

She kept hold of his arm and took over leading them
around amongst all the wonders of the foreign traders. They stopped at a small
rented storefront that was stocked with distilled liquors from Takalia. They
made the strong drinks from local fruits and berries that had no names in Acardian.
The merchant who sold them was a well-traveled Golishman who knew the markets
well and had given them names like “Moon Berry,” “Star Fruit,” and “River
Dream.” He passed out samples poured into thimbles to anyone who looked both
interested and with coin enough to purchase. He kept a careful guard against
the drunkard beggars who might otherwise drink him penniless.

Kyrus and Abbiley both tried samples. Kyrus picked one
called “Honeyfruit” that was sweet and smooth, though stronger than he was used
to. He was thankful for the tiny vessel it was provided in, lest he pass out
right there in the marketplace. Abbiley sampled “Forgetful Breeze” and blinked
several times as the sharp, cool beverage seemed to go straight to her head.

“You shall not find better distillers than the
Takalish. They make of it an art form,” the proprietor told them. His puffed
and ruddy complexion bespoke a certain expertise on the subject that Kyrus felt
no inclination to argue with.

“Have you got anything a bit milder?” Kyrus asked him.

While Kyrus was certainly not above enjoying a good
strong drink from time to time, he preferred remembering the occasion.

“Well, drinks from Takalia are made to be strong, but
I have other wares as well. I cannot afford to give samples, but I have this
wine from Feru Maru that they make from mushrooms. I assure you it is worth the
price at five hundred eckles,” the merchant said.

“Five hundred for one bottle?” Kyrus asked.

He knew that wine was often expensive, but that was
what he might make in a typical month. Lord Derrel’s commission had fattened
his purse but not dulled his judgment.

“Good sir, I make my way to Acardia every other year
at the least and have yet to depart with a single bottle remaining. I will keep
this shopfront open until I sell what I have purchased abroad and then settle
in for the season to enjoy a fine Acardian summer. I shall ship out again with
the autumn trade winds and do it all over again, and I shall expect my
customers to be eagerly awaiting my return with more. My name is Droon Harwick,
and you may ask anyone you like, should you doubt my reputation.”

“Well, Mr. Harwick,” Kyrus said, “suppose I were to
offer you four hundred and the prospect of another loyal customer awaiting you
each autumn?”

Kyrus much preferred wine to liquor and thought that
perhaps an indulgence while he had the coin in hand would not be entirely
unjustified. Besides, it occurred to him that if his plans worked out for using
magic to speed his work, he would hardly be short on coin again.

“Kyrus, are you certain?” Abbiley asked.

“No, not entirely. But have you ever had mushroom
wine?” he asked her.

“Well, no, but—”

“Neither have I. Why not have a go at it? I just
finished a rather large rush job and have extra coin in hand. We should enjoy
good fortune when it presents itself,” Kyrus said.

“Well reasoned, my good man. Make that four hundred
thirty and you shall have your mushroom wine,” Droon Harwick said.

Kyrus lacked the wherewithal to bargain further and
simply accepted the merchant’s price. It was awkward enough having offered so
much less than the asking price in the first place. He felt the man had done
him a favor in asking back so little.

The wine came in a glass jug with a small chain
running through the cork and attaching to a small loop of glass near the top.
It required no corkscrew to open. The glass itself had a greenish tint to it
but was otherwise clear. The liquid inside had a yellowish hue to it, but Kyrus
could not tell how much the color was distorted by the green of the glass.

Toting his purchase at his side, Kyrus took Abbiley by
the hand again, and they continued their adventure in the market. They stopped
and saw a juggler in an outlandish outfit covered in ribbons and bells, tossing
knifes as if he had not a care for the danger. After the performance, he passed
around a bowl and accepted coins from the onlookers, many of whom were happy to
oblige for the masterful performance they had just witnessed. Kyrus tossed in a
few eckles in the hope that such entertainers would continue coming to the
city.