The Beggar King (15 page)

The undermagic. The word made Jordan feel as if he were teetering on the edge of a cliff.

“Well, then,” Sarmillion said, “we're in agreement finally. Don't start wiggling your funky eyebrows at me. We're going to need something extraordinary to overthrow these Brinnians. Tell me, my shovel-bearing friend, what are our choices?”

“I can tell ye one thing, the brassed door ain't a choice. It ain't on the list. It ain't even a consideration — most particularly if our Jordan's been messing with dark magic in the first place. Now, how about ye tell me something? How can a full-time scribe disregard his traditional schooling without a second's thought?”

“What do the old tales have to do with this?”

“The Tale of the Sister Moons, Sarmillion — ever hear that one? The dangers of the undermagic, how it can darken a soul? Blast it anyway, Sister Lucinda gave up everything to hide that evil power away. ‘Tis a great mystery, that brassed door, and here you are ready to treat it like it were naught but the entry to a tavern.”

“What are you afraid of? Do you think the big bad Beggar King will come and steal the undermagic away from us?”

“Beware the beggar who would be king. What do ye reckon it means? King of the Brinnian provinces? ‘Tis the kingdom of the undermagic he wanted all those years ago and some folks say he still means to have it.”

“You can't be serious,” cried Sarmillion. “The Beggar King, as I was just telling some underrats, is not an actual person. Surely you know that. No one really believes the story about the sister moons. It's all metaphor.”

Jordan's skin prickled as the odd man's words rang in his head: “Human nature works in our favour.” That vision he'd had when he'd touched the brass door . . . It had felt like something opening inside him. There had been a shadow on the other side, a shadow that had called to him, and he had answered. And there had been glorious darkness, that charge in the air that he had never encountered anywhere before.

“Even if the undermagic is behind that door,” said Mars, “what does it matter? What do ye think ye can do about it?” “Don't you see?” cried Sarmillion, and the pacing stopped.

“It could change everything.”

“Sure. It could make things a whole lot worse.”

Sarmillion let out a harrumph. “You're not listening to me.”

“Oh, I hear ye. Anyway, we got no chance of opening that door,” Mars said.

Jordan was tempted to shout, “Of course you do. You have more than a chance. You have me.”

“Even if we did,” the gardener said, “who says ‘tis wise to do it? Ain't a soul understands the source of the power ye be calling up. Wakin' the vultures. Personally I don't like the sound of that.”

Waking the vultures. There was a mention of vultures in the Tale of the Sister Moons, but Jordan had never thought of them as real. They were quaint, as meaningless as the crows' feet carried by Cirsinnian traders in their pockets to ward off evil. Yet hadn't he heard wings that day he'd opened the brass door? But what could vultures have to do with anything?

“Far as I'm concerned about yer brassed door, the case is closed.”

“No it isn't!” Sarmillion's cry startled Jordan.

“Great Light, underkitty, calm yourself.”

“I — forgive me. I am not myself tonight. Has there been news from Ut?”

Mars let out a sigh. “Not a word, but it's early still. ‘Tis a good ten days' sail for our men to get there, and then they'll need to find the place. Five miles from Utberg could be five miles in any direction, and ye know the way Uttic folk are with strangers: as closed-mouthed as the dead.”

“What if we sent the Elliott boy up to the palace?” said Sarmillion. “Just to get information. There's bound to be some up there.”

“Blighted billy grain, underkitty, think on what yer asking. The boy risked his life at the hanging tree this very day. Rabellus and his Landguards won't be forgetting that anytime soon. They'll be searching for him, ye can count on it. And you mean to send him right into the heart of danger?”

“He's the only one who could get away with it. Besides, he'll be a hero. It's what he wants.”

“He might pay for it with his life.”

Jordan thought of Theophen and how he would have given his life to protect the Holy City, and then he could stand it no longer. He burst out of the bedroom yelling, “I'll do it!”

Mars rose in surprise, and then gave him a short bow. “May the Great Light shine upon ye, young feirhart.”

“And upon your family,” Jordan replied.

The gardener clasped him in a hug, then stood back to look at him. “Your father was a sight this afternoon, poor fella, but I assured him yer out of harm's way.”

“Thank you.” Jordan smiled at him.

“Sit, feirhart,” said Mars. He placed his large tanned hands upon his knees and gazed at Jordan with his bright blue eyes. “Ye need to be straight with us, now. How did ye come upon this gift of yours? I'm sure ye realize ‘tis no ordinary skill. I can't lie, Jordan. I'm worried about where yer new power is coming from.”

Jordan bit his lip. Maybe it would be better if he told them about this man who called himself the Beggar King. “Tell no one,” the man had said
.

“Didn't you say that it happened one evening in the cedar groves?” Sarmillion interjected. “You'd been eating mushrooms and you fell asleep. When you woke up, you felt different.”

Mars's eyebrows rose. “I asked the boy, underkitty, not you.”

But Jordan was nodding vigorously. “It's just as he says.” And then he gave a theatrical shrug. “Who knows? Maybe the mushrooms were enchanted.”

“Well . . . mushrooms,” said Mars, appearing to give the matter serious consideration.

“Anything's possible with mushrooms,” said Sarmillion. “You can't be too careful.”

“Were ye ill afterwards?” asked Mars. “Did ye visit a healer?”

“No, I was fine,” said Jordan. “I am fine. There's nothing to worry about.”

The gardener scratched his bald head.

“You know we could use someone to sneak into the palace and find out more about the prisoners,” said Sarmillion. “Would you be willing to do it?”

“Rabellus took my mother away,” Jordan said. “I have to try.”

“Don't give up hope, feirhart,” said Mars. “We know they're in the south of Ut, thanks to Sarmillion here. We got spies down there now scoping out the conditions of their confinement. But they haven't sent word yet and time is passing. The sooner we know more, the sooner we can go down and bring ‘em home. They're gonna come home, Jordan — Arrabel and Theophen and your mother, too.”

“While you're at the palace, you might also go knocking on a few doors,” said Sarmillion, but Mars rose and said, “Don't ye start on that nonsense. Are ye fixing to get the boy killed?”

“Mars here isn't interested in the undermagic,” said Sarmillion. “If you can believe that.”

“What I ain't interested in is prying something open that's meant to stay closed.”

Prying? Jordan had opened that door without any effort at all.

“Now, the night may be made of time,” Mars said, “but none of it belongs to us. You've made an enemy of Piccolo. Landguards come calling, he's gonna tell ‘em he seen ye, and this is the first door they'll knock at.”

“Where can I go?” Jordan asked. He couldn't disguise the tremor in his voice.

Sarmillion and Mars exchanged a look.

“Best place to hide something is under their noses,” said Mars. “No one suspects a simple gardener. They all reckon I'm lowly and dumb. I've got a cave down near the river. We hide Loyalists there sometimes if they're in danger. I say we go there.”

Sarmillion collected the whiskey glasses off the table. “I'll pack my bags.”

“Ye won't be needing yer smoking jackets, underkitty.”

“I don't expect you to understand,” the undercat replied. “You wear overalls.”

Mars slapped his hands on his thighs. “I'm a gardener. What do ye think I'd wear? Meditary robes?”

Jordan followed the undercat into his walk-in closet.

“Put your headdress on,” Sarmillion said. “You'll need it.”

Jordan tried to fix it the way Sarmillion had shown him but his hands were shaking too badly and it ended up a twisted mess.

“Let me,” said the undercat, and he arranged it in less than a minute.

Jordan regarded himself in the looking glass. There were the same green eyes staring back at him, the same mole on his cheek, the same dimple in his chin. “This isn't going to work,” he said.

Sarmillion zipped up his bag and put on a straw fedora hat. “It has to, old friend. It's all we've got.”

Fourteen
C
ROSSING THE
B
ALAKAN

O
NLY
N
E'ER
D
O
W
ELL WOULD GRANT
Jordan, Sarmillion and Mars passage across the Balakan River. As they negotiated the dangerous bridge of uneven planks, anxious about it supporting their weight, Jordan could make out the stooped silhouette of a person standing on a distant bridge, watching them. Which bridge was he on? Jordan counted them. After Ne'er Do Well there was the glittering structure of Amethyst, but apparently no one at this hour possessed the tranquility required to use it. The person must have been standing on the next bridge, which was — but no, that wasn't right. It couldn't be.

Jordan's heart thudded above the loud rushing of the water. It was dark. He wasn't seeing clearly. He looked again. The silhouette was still there. A musty smell drifted towards him on the river breeze.

When Sarmillion murmured, “Oh, slag,” Jordan's eyes widened, thinking the undercat knew, had deduced everything through his long straight whiskers. And then Jordan saw the knot of black-booted men waiting for them at the other end of the bridge.

“Get behind us,” Mars whispered to Jordan. “And then use yer gift.”

Jordan crouched to hide himself.

“Three Omarrians wish to pass into Cir,” said one of the Landguards in a thick Brinnian accent and a mocking tone.

“On the contrary, feirhart,” said Sarmillion, “on this lovely evening we are only two.”

“I saw three,” said another guard.

“Aye,” said yet another. “So did I. He was wearing a headdress.”

“Look for yerselves,” said Mars.

As Mars and Sarmillion parted, Jordan held his breath, curled his fingers around the air, and heard the rush of flapping wings as he entered the now-familiar passage.

This time there were icy puddles of fetid water on the pathway. It was so dark he could scarcely see his hand when he held it to his face. He braced himself but the dark-robed man didn't appear. He exhaled a sigh of relief, and then he heard footsteps cracking the sheen of ice.

“Who is it?” Jordan called. “Who's there?”

“Little boy wearing too-big shoes,” came a snide cackle, and Jordan felt a chill spread throughout his body. He had heard that before, but where?

“Little boy thinks he's a big man now.”

“Who are you?” asked Jordan. “I can't see you. What do you want?”

Jordan was feeling dizzy. A stench like rotting meat hung in the frigid air. He teetered, and then remembered he was on a bridge. If he fell, there was bound to be trouble. He peered into the world he'd left behind. Sarmillion and Mars were gone, but the group of Landguards was now trying to come across.

“These damned Cirran bridges,” said one. “I can't even get my foot on it. What's the point of building bridges you can't use? Answer me that.”

“Clear off. Let me have a go.”

Jordan watched them struggle at the bridge entrance. They looked ridiculous, hurling themselves into thin air and hitting an invisible wall.

The Landguards weren't giving up, and Jordan decided he had better concentrate on getting to Cir himself. There wasn't room to pass them safely, so he turned and headed back to the Omarrian riverbank. He would have to enter Cir by another bridge. He considered the row of structures that spanned the river. Unfortunately, even though he was not part of the world, it seemed he still had to use it to get to where he was going.

The Bridge of Resolve refused him, which was no surprise, but when Peril wouldn't allow him on, Jordan got nervous. He ran all the way back to the gleaming golden entrance of Amethyst, even though he knew he was too agitated for it to admit him. He gazed some distance away to the next bridge, the Bridge of No Return.

Jordan would sooner have swum across the Balakan, but the bridge emitted a force that pulled at him. He couldn't have gone another way if he'd tried. His feet moved him so quickly he tripped and almost fell, and soon he was facing the terrible black bridge and putting his foot upon it. There was no one on the bridge, no one on his dim path. Whoever that silhouette had belonged to, he was gone now. And yet, Jordan felt him like icy breath against his cheek. As he crossed, something spoke to him. It was not the same voice he'd heard a moment ago; this sounded more like the man who called himself the Beggar King.

“You could be great, Jordan Elliott . . . if you dare. Are we so inclined, boy? Do we have the blood for it?”

The words burned in his throat like fireweed whiskey, they weakened his knees and made something inside him glow. “Come, come,” said the voice and it drew him and he came towards it as if it were a fire and he wanted so badly to be warm, even if it might burn him. He knew that if he made it to the end of this bridge something would be decided, although he didn't understand what it was, and yet he couldn't do otherwise. “Are you worthy to cross here?” The world fell away, and he walked.

As he stumbled off the Cirran end, doubled over and breathing hard, he spied the hunchback and the undercat in the distance, their backs to him. Jordan ripped the air apart and reappeared in the world. In that instant Sarmillion turned, and Jordan could see everything on his face: the realization of which bridge he had taken, the confirmation that it had indeed been he who'd stood upon this bridge one year ago. And then, just as suddenly, Sarmillion resumed his conversation with Mars as if he'd seen nothing. As if he had decided to ignore the evidence before his own eyes.