Magesong (14 page)

"Dad?"  Jonn stood inside the cellar door,
blinking in confusion.

"Jonn, your father is sick," Syliva said
desperately.  "He doesn't know us — he thinks we're bad people.  Run.  Go
get help at the — "

But Aksel had already crossed the room, the hammer falling
in an arc aimed at Jonn’s forehead.  Instinctively Jonn threw up his arms, the
heavy wooden handle smacking into the fleshy part of his hand.  Aksel gave him
no time to recover, swinging again and again, Jonn now blocking with his
forearms, blurting out short low cries, almost moans, more from dismay than his
bruised wrists.

"Grab the hammer, Jonn," Syliva yelled, "take
it away from him."  But he only cringed.  He stood a full head taller than
Aksel and had twice the bulk, but the man was his father, and, faced with that,
he could only back away defending himself.

Syliva quickly looked around.  Only an old broom — no good. 
Wait, the shattered barrel-top.  She tore half of it loose.  At the sound of
splintering wood, Aksel paused to glance at her.

"You'll not blind side me, old woman," he snarled,
turning on her.

The broken piece of wood, now in both of her hands, came up,
seemingly on its own, as the hammer came down.  The makeshift shield cracked as
the impact drove her down and away, onto her backside.  Her hands went numb.

He stood over her, his eyes unreasoning.  Then Jonn was
behind him, his hand shooting out to take hold of the hammer.

Syliva crawled away on her back.  "That's it, son.  Get
it."

A quick scuffle, then Jonn had the hammer to himself. 
"You idiot," Aksel said, backhanding him across the face.

Jonn slid back, tears welling in his eyes, and tossed the
hammer aside as if it had bit him.  Syliva found herself on her feet, dashing
for the steps.  Jonn could not fight his father; they had to get away.

"Run," she called to Jonn, as Aksel went after the
hammer.  "Hurry, son!"

Throw the door closed behind them, up the stone steps, a
right through the front room then out.  No, the front door held fast — nailed
shut.  The back door would be open.  That was the way she had come in.

She heard Aksel at the top of the cellar steps.  Now they
would have to get past him to get out.  She cursed herself silently for not going
out the kitchen when they had the chance.

"Upstairs," she gasped at Jonn, "to your
room."  She doubted that Aksel had nailed shut the upstairs windows.  Jonn
took the steps two at a time, dragging her along with him.  She heard the
wooden steps groaning behind her as they pushed into Jonn's small bedroom.  She
slammed the door closed, but had no way to lock it.  They had no bolts on the
interior doors.

"Push your bed up against it, hurry, Jonn."  He
did it with one shove.  "Good.  Now hold it," she said, going to the
window.  The shutters stood drawn, and she had a sick feeling.

She saw the nail heads in the wooden bar that lay across the
window sill.  Not too many.  She pushed hard but they held tight.  She and Jonn
were trapped.

A sharp crack of thunder from the bedroom door froze them in
place.  Loud as a gunshot came the second blow, the dark iron of the hammer
breaking through the thin sheet of white pine.  Jonn covered his ears,
forgetting to keep his weight against the bed.  The hammerhead fully pierced
the door on the third blow, throwing splinters into the little room, forcing
the door open a few inches.  It seemed that Aksel tried to withdraw the hammer,
but it was stuck.  Then the door wedged open a foot, pushing back the bed, and Aksel
slipped through quickly, drawing the butchering knife.

Jonn stood there crying, unable to move, but Syliva no
longer had tears.  She was too frightened.

"Jonn," she said, her voice too high, "you
have to hurt him.  To help him you have to hurt him."

Aksel knew the boy in a man's body would do nothing.  He
took a step toward Syliva.

"You have to do it," she pleaded.  "You have
to do it now, Jonn."  Fear took her.  She screamed.  "Now!"

Jonn screamed with her, and leaping forward, grasped his
father's knife arm with both hands, twisting the wrist backward with all his
strength.  Aksel yelled in pain, but punched Jonn in the ribs left-handed.  The
knife fell to the floor.  Aksel jabbed into his son's rib cage again, hard, and
a sudden fury seized the young man.  He grabbed Aksel in a huge bear hug,
lifting him off his feet, swinging him sideways into the wall, driving him into
the corner, still swinging him side to side, Aksel's head whipping into one
wall then the other.  Then, feeling him go limp in his arms, Jonn let him slide
to the floor.

Still weeping, Jonn looked at his father's thin body lying
crumpled on the floor.  "I killed him.  I killed him.  Oh, I killed
him."

Syliva knelt next to him and lifted her husband's head,
pulling back an eyelid and running her hands across the scalp.  "It's not
broken — you didn't hurt him badly.  I can heal him now, son.  I can heal him
now."

He kept a quarter step behind Libac, as he always did, never
meeting the nobleman's gaze directly while they traversed the length of the
west hall.  The highly-polished marble floor reflected blurred images of the
statuary lining the passage, standing in niches like guardsmen.  Ephemeris was
always careful to maintain propriety in front of the other servants.  He smiled
inwardly.  If only those fools knew who was the master and who the servant, he
would get more than hateful looks from old attendants, more than simple
jealousy for being elevated to a position of prime retainer after but a few
weeks of service.  Only when he was sure they were alone would Ephemeris speak
to him familiarly, calling him by his first name, patting him on the shoulder
in a brotherly way.

Still, he had to be careful even then.  The eye of glamour
tied delicate bonds to those it was cast upon.  He must not do anything that
would allow Libac to question the rapport or loyalty of his best retainer.

They reached the door to the trophy room, and Libac turned
to him as he fished the key from his waistcoat pocket.  "Are you sure you
don't mind, Orez?"

"Of course not, sir.  It was I, in fact, who suggested
it if you recall."

"Yes, I know,"  Libac said, opening the door,
"but it is such menial work for a retainer of your breeding and
education."

"As you said yourself, sir, my unique education makes
me the most qualified to clean your antiquities room.  After all, if your
scholarly guests at the garden party are to view your collection, it must be
pristine."

"Yes, I cannot believe I was lucky enough to find an
educated man who shares my interest in ancient artifacts, much less one who
worked with the great Dorien Ryne.  You seem tailor-made to my needs,
Orez."

"It suits me as well, sir." 
Lucky, yes.  Lucky
that I caught you alone in the privy long enough to use the eye to charm you
.

Libac opened the door and they entered the room.  "Airen,"
Ephemeris said softly, "once again it enraptures me."  With the sweep
of his arm he included the entire room, but his eye stayed fixed on the
star-shaped wooden object.

He watched with disgust as Libac went to it and stroked it
with his stubby hands.  The artifact exuded a spirit so strong that even an
uninitiated fool like Airen Libac could feel something.

"I wish I had time to watch you do this, my friend — no
doubt I would learn a great deal, but the preparations for this affair consume
me.  I will leave you to your art."

Libac closed the door behind him as he went.

Art.  Yes, exactly
.  Ephemeris seized the Essa, and
power flowed through him.  He touched the tarnished brass handle of the door
and said a quiet word in the Essian tongue, no need of an elaborate incantation
for a simple Fastening, not for a magician of his experience.  A second word,
and it was done.  Now, not even Libac could walk in on him, and anyone who
tried would find the door quite stuck.  A door sometimes gets stuck.  It had
been wet the last few weeks, and everyone knows that this kind of annoyance
often comes with a change in the weather.

He turned to the spirit box.  Now, after weeks of tedious
service as a gentleman's gentleman, after weeks of only being able to look at
it, he could at last touch it.  Opening himself to the weird, he placed his
hands on the domed top of the artifact, feeling at once the ancient energies
locked within.  Beads of sweat formed on his temples, breaking free to run down
his long sideburns.  Running his hands along the curved sides of the object, he
felt instead of its waxen smoothness the waters of a healing spring.  Yes,
Cipher had been right.  As soon as he touched it, Ephemeris knew it for what it
was: 
E'alaisenne
, the sixth great elemental, the most gentle of all the
essential spirits.  And he would be the one to bring it to the Temple of
Supplication where they would bind it to the other five
Aevir.

The first great elemental,
Ivestris
, an ethereal
creature of sea and sky and mystery, had been brought to the abandoned tower by
the founders of the society, the first inner circle.  That had been in the last
days of the Cycle of Ice, over three hundred years before.  The legendary
Insessor had delivered
Vaz'thokkar
, a being of fire and wind and power,
in the first Cycle of the new age.  The Supplicants of the Final Grammarie
still hailed him as the greatest magician the society has ever known, but his
life passed before another of the
Aevir
could be found.  In time,
though, the others revealed themselves: 
Salaniyus
, made of stars and
silence and wisdom,
Aleramykrae
, of sand and light and craft, and
Jasbevrien
,
the elements of the moon and flowers and harmony.  And now Ephemeris would
complete the circle and seize the final power.  Insessor would be forgotten.

Late that afternoon, Ephemeris drove away from the Libac
town-house in a one-horse buggy and travelled the three and a half leagues to
the waterfront of Mira-Delvin.  As he boarded his ship, he saw that only the
mate, the cook, and two sailors were there.

"Where is everyone?" he called to the mate, who
had just emerged from the sail locker.

"I gave them liberty, sir.  The ship is all squared
away, and well . . . we've been sitting here for weeks, Captain.  It would be
strange not to."

Ephemeris thought for a moment.  "Alright.  As long as
they do not take strong drink."

"Oh, no sir.  None of us would break your rule against
drinking.  I don't even remember what it was like."

The cook approached, knuckling his forehead.  "Will you
be taking supper aboard ship tonight, Captain?"

"No, I must return to my work tonight," Ephemeris
said, walking away from them and going to his cabin.  He stopped in the
doorway, turning back to the mate.

"Has anyone come looking for our poor sick friend, the customs
man?"

"No sir," the mate said, looking away with a
slight shudder.

Inside his cabin, Ephemeris dismissed the invisible fastening
laid upon his iron-bound sea chest, retrieving from within a weathered
almanac.  He flipped the pages, looking for the night of the garden party . . .
yes, the tide would be high enough at half past midnight and the moon nearly
full.  That settled it.  The timing was almost perfect for the plan he had been
devising.

As the last of the guests were leaving — at about ten o'clock,
he figured — he would tell Libac that the door of his treasure room was open
and the spirit box missing.  Perhaps he could throw suspicion on one of the
guests who had already gone and offer to go off in pursuit.  In any case, the
Aevir
would be waiting in the alley with Malor, who Ephemeris, as major-domo of the
Libac estate, had seemingly hired to haul away the garbage.  They would have to
rent, or better still, buy a mule and wagon.  And he should have Malor draw a
blunderbuss from the arms locker.  The remainder of the crew would be at the
ship with all in readiness, and they could sail as soon as he arrived. 
Midnight would find a fair wind for sailing on the rise, but an hour later it
would turn into a local storm.  Ephemeris would make sure of that.  Yes, Libac
and the authorities would figure it all out the next day, but by then he would
be far out on the ocean, and woe be to any ship that tried to overtake him.

Ephemeris of course knew the problem with plans — they often
go wrong.  The shock of seeing his beloved artifact gone might allow Libac to
shake off the glamouring.  But not that, nor the liveried guards could stop
him, even if they all walked in on him in the act of theft.  If he had to blind
everyone who saw him, he would do it.  If he had to put on the glove and leave
a trail of dead men behind him, he would do that too.

"We don't even know his name," Farlo said between
bites of black bread.  "Hey," he called to the huge matron, "got
any jam to go with this?"

She stuck her head into the front room where they
breakfasted.  "That costs extra, another half-penny."

Reyin downed the last of his coffee and wished for more —
commoners in Jakavia drank better coffee than the lords of the north — but that
cost extra too.  "We will find out his name, and everything anyone knows
about him."

"And then?"

"Then we'll make a plan."

The matron came in with a tiny saucer of orange marmalade. 
"Will you two be staying again tonight?  I'm going to the market today, so
I'll need to know."

Farlo cast a desperate beam at Reyin.  He had not slept well
for a second night.

"No," Reyin said, "thanks.  We're sure to
find our friends today.”

She had been full of questions when they returned for dinner
the day before, Reyin still shaken, Farlo tight-lipped.  Who were they?  What
was their business in Mira-Delvin?  After all, if they were staying in her
house she had a right to know.

Farlo had answered her with a snappy, "None of your
business," and Reyin then had to spend the entire meal allaying her
suspicions.  They were minstrels, looking for other musicians they were to meet
here.  He explained that troubadours sometimes held meetings just for
themselves, to trade songs.  Farlo?  Yes, I know he doesn't speak well, but
he's the best flute player west of Tamurr.  Later, when they had gone to their
room, Farlo asked, "Why are you acting like we're on the run?  We ain't
done anything.  Even if I showed my little mark, what could she do besides
throw us out of her house?  There's no law against being a Syrolian outlaw in
Jakavia."

"Keep your voice down," Reyin whispered. 
"She may be listening outside the door."  He tiptoed over to the door
and peeked through the keyhole.  "Don't you know that there are
thief-takers who would haul you all the way back to Kandin and be happy to
split the bounty with the one that spotted you?

"You must remember that we're foreigners here.  If all
she did was report us to the watch as suspicious persons, we might be taken to
the jail and questioned.  At the very least they would discover we haven't any
money and put us outside the city walls.  Jakavia seems to be a country where .
. ."

"Where you had best be about your business?"

"Yes, exactly."

Reyin watched Farlo spoon marmalade onto his buttered
bread.  So now they had to search out a new place to stay.  The cost of a hotel
was out of the question, and Reyin didn't think they could find a cheaper
room.  Maybe they would find a landlady who was less suspicious.  After saying
good-bye to the matron, Farlo carrying Reyin's flute case for show, they walked
the streets aimlessly for a time.

"Have you noticed," Reyin said as they walked,
"something missing here?  No street hucksters, no beggars.  The usual gang
of street toughs, and urchins, sure, but they look like they live here.  No one
destitute."

"They'd all be down at the harbor."

"How do you know?"

"Because waterfronts are all the same, everywhere you
go.  And that's where the miserably poor live.  You say we're short on coin and
need to be anonymous?  That would be the place to stay."

"I may never have been a sailor like you, Farlo, but
I've seen my share of waterfronts.  Yes, they are somewhat alike, I suppose. 
Not all are run down, though, and none that I have seen compare with, say, the
thieves quarter in Elatylos."

Farlo made a sound in his throat.  "You don't know
where to look."

Farlo led him down a wide boulevard jammed with mule teams
pulling heavy wagons.  As they neared the harbor he began looking down the
alleys and side streets muttering, "Not close enough yet."

He stopped where a narrow street, just wide enough for a
dogcart, snaked off to the southwest between a four-story block of flats and an
ancient stone warehouse.  He nodded, waving at Reyin to come along as he turned
off the boulevard.  Past the warehouse the street zigzagged sharply down a
steep incline.  A sidewalk cafe lay at the bottom of the hill, its white
plaster front broken by a thousand cracks and crevasses running together in a
chaotic pattern.  An old man wearing a linen headwrap sat outside at a wobbly
table drinking a clear liquor.  He didn't look at them.

"There," Farlo said, pointing.  A narrow paved
alley sliced alongside the cafe, descending steeply in a series of stonework
steps and landings.  They went down, stepping carefully among the large shards
of broken bottles laying everywhere.  The grade became very steep, all steps
now, as they entered the shadow of the buildings, and still the alley continued
downward, seeming to cut into the very bedrock supporting the city.  A sagging
wood-framed house behind the cafe loomed over them from five stories up.  The
paving ended at the bottom of the steps, the alley running off into a tall
tunnel roofed by a concrete bridge.

The dirt floor of the passage was damp and smelled of
urine.  In the low places, the tips of small animal bones broke through the
mud.

"Let's keep going," Farlo said, entering the
grotto.

Reyin had to close his eyes for a moment to speed adjustment
to the dark, but the tunnel was short enough for each end to spread dim light
along its length.  After twenty paces he suddenly became aware of human shapes
squatting or lying to each side.  In many places long low niches had been
carved into the walls, a few handfuls of flattened straw scattered in each.

"What is this," Reyin whispered, "a tomb for
those not yet dead?"

"Shut up," Farlo hissed.  "We're in these
people's home."

A lone figure, a shirtless man wearing a stocking cap,
entered the tunnel from the opposite end.  When they passed him he waved
casually and said hello as if it were simply a village lane they walked.  And a
village of sorts it seemed to be when they came out into the light of an oblong
plaza.

It had been built in the vertical.  Around a longtime dry
and broken fountain rose tenements, tiny shops, market stalls, open platforms,
rain cisterns, animal pens, and even a gazebo of sorts, all under a sea of
faded awnings stretching upward for seven stories, catwalks and ladders
criss-crossing the great circling facade.  Reyin felt a touch of vertigo as he
looked up and turned around.  The odor of humanity hung heavy there, not quite
masking that of fish and brine.

In a clear space between two huts on the south side of the
plaza, sat a fat man next to a contraption something like a ship's capstan.  A
small donkey stood hitched to it.  On the other side of the man lay an enormous
basket harnessed to a rope thick as a man's leg.  The cable ran upward eighty
feet from the gondola to pass through a block at the end of a beam, then back
down to the animal-driven winch.  Two elderly women approached, each giving the
fat man a fresh peach for fare, and climbed into the basket.  The fellow
touched his donkey with a light switch and the basket with the women swung into
the air, inching slowly up as the donkey made turn after turn.

"Is there a cheap place to stay around here?"
Reyin said to the man as he and Farlo walked over to him.

Rubbing the two days of growth bristling on his neck, the
fat man said, "You must be new to The Barrel."

"The barrel?"

"What we call this place."  He halted the donkey,
waving at the old ladies as they stepped out onto a platform halfway up.  He
turned back to Reyin.  "Only place to rent a room is the Topmast
Inn."  He pointed to a mud-brick building on the highest level.  It leaned
discernibly to one side.

A shawled woman, carrying a baby and wearing patched drapery
for a dress, appeared at the highest platform.  She whistled down at them and
called, "Hey Bodoval!  All the way, okay?"

Waving to the woman, Bodoval turned to Reyin.  "I don't
get many willing to pay for a trip down."

Bodoval tapped the donkey, sending the basket to the top. 
The woman waited while he removed the push arm of the capstan from the hub and
brought the animal off to the side.  He signaled the woman with one hand, and
when she stepped into the basket he eased back on a braking lever and began
bringing her down slowly.

"Come on," she called, "I don't have all
day."

Bodoval opened the brake a little more and the gondola
dropped quickly, almost falling.  At the last moment he casually threw closed
the lever and the basket came to a stop a foot off the ground.

The woman vaulted over the side, the baby in one arm.  She
reached inside the baby's blanket and produced a tiny coin, a silver penny,
tossing it to Bodoval.

"Hoa," he said, "you've done well today
Letia."

She smiled.  "I have, but I want half of that
back."

Bodoval took a pair of crude iron scissors out of his pocket
and snipped the coin in neatly in two, returning one portion to Letia.  She
took it, gave Reyin an interested look, and slid past him as she went on her
way.

"Best cutpurse in the whole city, Letia is.  Smart
too.  Pretends to be a beggar, but the baby isn't even hers.  She rents them
from those who have too many."

Reyin's eyes went wide as his hand lunged for his purse
strings.

Bodoval laughed.  "Don't worry.  No one is fair game in
The Barrel; everyone here is dirt poor.  The watch don't even come here, 'cept
maybe once a year, but we have our own way of dealin' with stealing.  Remember
that."

Reyin wanted to climb the seven rickety ladders to the
Topmast Inn, it seeming less risky than Bodoval's device.  But Farlo thought it
safe enough when Bodoval told them the first lift was free, and up they went.  The
Topmast Inn had a front room enclosed by thick mud walls, surprisingly cool in
the midday heat, with planks across sawhorses for the only dining table and old
crates of various sizes for all other furnishings.  Two ladders at the back led
each to a small wooden shack, crudely pegged together, sitting on the roof of
the older mud-brick structure.  These were the inn's two rooms.

"This is safe," Farlo said, "only the lowest
cutthroat would stay here."

The innkeeper was short and muscular, with the tip of a
harpoon where his left hand should have been.  "Fiddlers and the like pay
the same as everyone," he said when he saw them.  "You can play for
the crowd at night if you want, but they'll most likely throw knives as
coins."  He let go a laugh that sounded like gravel in his throat.

Farlo took the flute case and pushed it at Reyin. 
"This is his."

One room was vacant, and they took it for three pennies a
night.  Reyin threw his gear onto the only bed, a torn length of canvas
stretched across a wood frame.  Farlo found enough netting in one corner to rig
a hammock for himself.

From their window, a large hole covered with a flapping
piece of oilcloth, they could see over the topmost structures of The Barrel. 
They could also see the other way out.  A narrow passage, barely wide enough
for a man, ran from the top platform of Bodoval's lift through a maze of
warehouses to empty into a trash dump.

Reyin slumped on his cot, wiping the sweat from his brow. 
Compared to the coolness of the room below, the rooftop cabin was like an oven.

"No one in this hole would know anything about the
fellow we seek,” Reyin said.  I guess I could ask around in taverns, or maybe
toady my way into a low-end club with a drunk sportsman."

"Don't be stupid.  You'd come off sounding like a thief
who's new in town, and likely catch it from the real thieves if not from the
authorities.  There's too many informants lurking in taverns."  He rubbed
the brand on his arm through his long sleeve.  "We need a friend, someone
who lives here and knows the place."

"Have anyone in mind?"

Farlo looked at the ladder to the common room below. 
"I'd bet that the guy who runs this place worked whalers most of his life,
at least he has the look of it.  I worked a whaler once.  I'm sure we speak the
same language."

"What would a one-handed sailor know?"

"Everything that happens wharf-side.  Sailors talk.  Think
about it.  If this nobleman sailed all the way up to the Pallenborne with a
flying boat like you say, it must have been a large and costly venture needin'
a big ship.  It would have been the talk of the docks for months.  I'm
surprised they're not still talking about it all over the city.  Let me chat
this brother up.  I'll get us a name if nothing else."

"Okay.  What should I do?"

"Same as me.  Find one of
your own kind.  You know where minstrels waste their time when they ain't
playin' don't you?"

Reyin stopped in front of broken stone steps leading to a
red door and inhaled a breath thick with sea salt and stale perfume, calling
from his spirit the sense of place, feeling the house carefully, probing it
with invisible tendrils.  He had always been very strong in the knowing of
places.  It was something he could do naturally since childhood, and Artemes
even claimed that Reyin was a match for him in that talent.  At first, he had
not even been aware that it was an important thing to know, this sense of
place.

Someone inside the bordello picked out an old ballad on an
out-of-tune harpsichord — crudely done, not a musician.  Still, this was the
place where he could find what he wanted to know.  He entered the house with no
doubt of that.  This was the place.

The door opened into a large room set up much like a tavern,
except for a large red divan in the center.  A cloud of incense and tobacco
smoke hung close to the ceiling.  Two men sat at a long table, both managing to
drink from their tankards despite the attention of a giggling girl on each
arm.  Three unoccupied women, wearing little more than frilly underwear, lunged
at Reyin as soon as he entered, but he waved them off saying that he was
meeting a friend.