The Redemption of Althalus (17 page)

C H A P T E R     N I N E

W
hy should we care if she kills him, Em?” Althalus asked aloud. “It’s the Knife we want, not some half-grown little boy from Arum.”

When
are
you going to learn to look beyond the end of your nose, Al
thalus?
Her tone was a bit snippy, and there was enough condescension in it to be offensive.

“That’s about enough of that, Em,” he told her crisply.

Sorry, pet,
she apologized.
That
was
a little nasty, wasn’t it? What I’m
getting at is that everything is connected. Nothing happens in isolation. Eliar’s
probably some crude, unschooled barbarian from the backcountry of Arum,
but he
did
pick up the Knife back in Albron’s arms room. It might have been a
whim, but we can’t be sure of that until we test him. If he can’t read what’s
written on the blade, we’ll pat him on the head and tell him to run along home.
If he
can
read it, though, he’ll have to come with us.

“What if he’s like I was before I came to the House? I couldn’t even read my own name back then.”

I noticed. It won’t matter whether he can read or not. If he happens to be
one of the selected ones, he’ll know what the writing means.

“How will we know if he’s got it right?”

We’ll know, pet. Believe me, we’ll know.

“Why don’t you enlighten me? Tell me what the word on the blade is.”

It varies. It’ll mean something different to each person who reads it.

“Emmy, that doesn’t make any sense at all. A word’s a word, isn’t it? It’s supposed to have one specific meaning.”

Does the word “home” have a specific meaning?

“Of course it does. It means the place where a man lives—or maybe the place he originally came from.”

Then it has a different meaning for each person, doesn’t it?

He frowned.

Don’t beat yourself over the head with it, pet. The word that’s carved into
the Knife’s blade is a command, and it tells each one of the people we have to
locate to do something different.

“It can’t just be one word, then.”

I didn’t say that it was. Each reader will see it differently.

“It changes, then?”

No. It’s permanent. The writing stays the same. It’s the reading that
changes.

“You’re starting to give me a headache, Em.”

Don’t brood about it, Althie. It’ll make more sense to you once we get the
Knife. Our problem right now is getting the Knife—and Eliar—away from
Andine.

“I think I’ve already got the answer to that one, Em. I’ll just buy them from her.”

Buy?

“Pay her to give them to me.”

Althalus, Eliar’s a person. You can’t buy people.

“You’re wrong about that, Em. Eliar’s a captured soldier, and that means that he’s a slave now.”

That’s disgusting!

“Of course it is, but that’s the way things are. I’ll have to rob a few rich people to get enough gold to buy Eliar and the Knife. If Arya Andine’s as dead set on butchering Eliar as Sergeant Khalor seems to think she is, I’ll need
lots
of gold to persuade her to sell him to me.”

Maybe,
she murmured, her green eyes going distant.
But then again,
maybe not. If we use the Book right, she’ll be more than happy to sell him
to us.

“I’ve come across vindictive ladies before, Em. Believe me, it’ll take a
lot
of gold. If Sergeant Khalor was anywhere at all close to being right, she’s developed a strong appetite for Eliar’s blood by now. Let’s see if we can find some rich man’s house. I’ll rob him and then we can go make Andine an offer.”

There are other ways to get gold, Althalus.

“I know—mining it out of the ground. I don’t care for doing it that way. I’ve seen a lot of deep holes in the mountainsides of Kagwher, and from what I hear, only about one in a hundred has turned up even a speck of gold.”

I believe I can improve on those numbers, pet.

“I still don’t like chopping at the ground, Em. It makes my back hurt.”

That’s because you don’t get enough exercise. Let’s move right along. We
have several days’ travel ahead of us before you get to start digging.

“There isn’t any gold down here in the low country, Em.”

There is if you know where to look. Ride on, my brave boy, ride on.

“Was that supposed to be funny?”

They rode south across the parched grain fields of Perquaine for the next several days, moving at a steady canter. It was about midafternoon on the third day after their meeting with Sergeant Khalor when Althalus reined in and dismounted.

Why are we stopping?
Emmy asked.

“We’ve been pushing the horse a bit. I’ll walk alongside to give him a rest.” He looked around at the sun-baked fields. “Skimpy,” he observed.

What is?

“This year’s crop. It looks to me as if it’s hardly going to be worth the trouble to harvest it.”

It’s the drought, pet. It doesn’t rain much anymore.

“We should be getting close to the coastline, Em. It always rains along the coast.”

We’re a long way from where the coast is now, pet. We talked about that
back in the House, remember? The ice locks up more of the world’s water every
year. That causes the drought and lowers the sea level.

“Are we going to be able to repair that?”

What do you mean?

“Melt the ice so that things go back to the way they’re supposed to be.”

Why do men always want to tamper with the natural order of things?

“When something breaks, we fix it, that’s all.”

What gave you the absurd idea that it’s broken?

“It’s not the way it was before, Em. To our way of looking at things, that means that it’s broken.”

Now
which one of us is thinking the way Daeva thinks?

“Drying up the oceans and turning the world into a desert doesn’t make things better, Em.”

Change doesn’t necessarily mean improvement, Althalus. Change is just
change. “Better” and “worse” are human definitions. The world changes all the
time, and no amount of complaining’s going to stop it from changing.

“The seacoast shouldn’t move around,” he declared stubbornly.

You can tell it to stop, if you’d like. It
might
listen to you, but I wouldn’t
make any large wagers on it, if I were you.
She looked around.
We should
reach the place we’re looking for sometime tomorrow.

“Have we been looking for someplace special?”

Sort of special. It’s the place where you’re going to start working for your
living.

“What an unnatural thing to suggest.”

It’ll be good for you, love—fresh air, exercise, wholesome food . . .

“I think I’d sooner take poison.”

They set up a rudimentary camp in a scraggly thicket some distance back from the road that evening and started out again shortly after dawn.

There it is,
Emmy said after they’d ridden for a couple of hours.

“There what is?”

The place where you do some honest work, pet.

“I wish you’d stop rubbing my nose in that.” He looked across what appeared to be a long-abandoned field at a kind of knoll, sparsely covered with stunted, tired-looking grass. “Is that it?” he asked.

That’s the place.

“How can you tell? It’s just a hill. We’ve passed dozens of others just like it.”

Yes, we have. This one isn’t an ordinary hill, though. It’s the ruins of an
old house that’s been covered with dirt.

“Who buried it like that?”

The wind. The ground’s very dry now, so the wind picks up dirt and car
ries it along until it comes to something that blocks it. That’s where it drops
the dirt.

“Is that the way all hills get built?”

Not all of them, no.

Althalus squinted at the rounded hillock. “I think I’m going to need some tools. I’ll dig if you insist, Em, but I’m not going to do it with my bare hands.”

We’ll take care of it. I’ll tell you the word to use.

“I still think it’d be easier just to rob somebody.”

There’s more gold in that hill than you’re likely to find in a dozen of the
houses we’ve passed. You say that you’ll need gold to buy Eliar and the Knife
from Andine. All right, there’s the gold. Go dig it up.

“How do you know there’s gold there?”

I just do. There’s more gold in those ruins than you’ve ever seen before.
Fetch, boy, fetch.

“That’s starting to make me a little tired, Em.”

If you’d do as you’re told the first time, I wouldn’t have to keep telling you
over and over again. You’re going to do what I tell you to do eventually any
way, so why not just do it immediately instead of arguing with me?

He gave up. “Yes, dear.”

Good boy,
she said approvingly.
Good boy.

She gave him instructions on how to manufacture a shovel with a single word and then directed him to a spot about fifty paces up the south side of the slope. As he led his horse up the hill, he saw some very ancient limestone building blocks half buried in the soil. They’d obviously been sawed square when the house had been erected, but wind and weather had rounded them to the point that they were almost indistinguishable from native stone. “How long ago was the house abandoned?” he asked.

About three thousand years ago. The man who built it started out in life as
a plowman. Then he went up into Arum before anybody else went up there.
He wasn’t really looking for gold, but he found some.

“Probably because he got there first. Why did he go to Arum if he didn’t know there was gold there, though?”

There’d been a slight misunderstanding about the ownership of a certain
pig. His neighbors were a little excited about it, so he decided to go up into the
mountains for a while to give them time to calm down. I’m sure you under
stand. This is the place, pet. Get down off the horse and start digging.

He dismounted, lifted Emmy out of the hood of his cloak, and set her on his saddle. Then he took off his cloak and rolled up his sleeves. “How deep do I have to dig?” he asked.

About four feet. Then you’ll hit some flagstones, and you’ll have to pry
them up. There’s a little cellar under the stones, and that’s where the gold is.

“Are you sure?”

Quit wasting time and start digging, Althalus.

“Yes, dear.” He sighed and very reluctantly thrust his shovel into the dirt.

The drought had made the soil dry and sandy, so digging wasn’t really as hard as he’d thought it would be.

I wouldn’t throw the dirt so far down the hill, pet,
Emmy suggested after a while.
You’ll have to shovel it all back in the hole when you’ve finished.

“What for?”

To keep somebody from finding the gold you’ll have to leave behind.

“I’m not going to leave any, Em.”

How do you plan to carry it?

“You’re sitting on him, love. He’s a strong horse.”

Not that strong, he isn’t.

“How much
is
there here?”

More than our horse can carry.

“Really?” Althalus began to dig faster.

After about a half hour, he struck the flagstones Emmy had told him about. Then he widened out the hole he’d dug to give himself some more room. He leaned his shovel against the side of the hole, knelt on the stones, and began to probe between them with his bright steel dagger. “Exactly what am I looking for here, Em?” he asked. “These flagstones fit together so tight that I can’t get my knife into the cracks.”

Keep looking,
she instructed.
The one you want to find fits a little more
loosely.

He kept poking until he found it. The dirt the patient centuries had blown in had sifted down into the cracks between the stones, and it took him a while to dig it out with his dagger point. Then he resheathed his dagger, took the shovel, and began to pry.

The stone lifted out rather easily, followed by a rush of stale-smelling air. There was an open space of some kind below the flagstones, but it was too dark down there to see anything. He pried up another stone to let in more light.

There were tightly piled stacks of dust-covered bricks in the cellar, and a hot surge of disappointment came over him. But why would anyone take so much trouble just to hide bricks? He reached down through the hole and brushed the dust away from one of the bricks.

He stared at it in absolute disbelief. The brick that had been concealed by centuries of dust was bright yellow.

“Dear God!” Althalus exclaimed, brushing away more dust.

He’s busy right now, Althalus. Could I take a message?

“There must be tons of it down here!”

Told you,
she reminded him smugly.

The gold had been cast into oblong blocks, each about the size of a man’s hand and slightly thicker. They weighed about five pounds apiece. Althalus found that he was trembling violently as he lifted the blocks out of the hole and laid them on the flagstones.

Don’t get carried away, Althalus,
Emmy suggested.

“Twenty?” He said it with a great reluctance.

I don’t think the horse would want to carry any more.

Althalus forced himself to stop at twenty of the gold blocks. Then he replaced the flagstone, shoveled all the dirt back into the hole, and uprooted a number of nearby bushes. He replanted the bushes in the freshly dug-up dirt to conceal his private gold mine.