Serpent's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 3)

by D J Salisbury

  “If that brat brings anything but the best, I’ll use him as fish bait.” Gaila straightened her shirt cuffs. “I think the prices I have in mind will make it worth your time to stay.”

  Considering they had lost most of their autumn trade from the storms, they’d better. He’d find other smiths more willing to trade if they didn’t.

  “I can beat any price she can offer,” the thin man shouted. “My brother’s as good or better than she is!”

  The heavyset man smiled. “It will be worth staying.”

  Viper pulled up a chair. “Did anybody else want to send for a new set of blades? I’m ready to bargain.”

  ***

  “Twenty two swords and sixty knives,” the kid told the morning air. He surely wasn’t talking to her or Tsai.

  Lorel sat on the stone fence and glared down the cobblestone street. “It sounds like we’re going into the knife business to me.”

  Last night she and Tsai had stowed those few swords on hooks on the wall, and shoved all them knives into drawers the kid padded with velvet. She was gonna complain about the waste of money, but some old guy showed up and begged the kid to copy a book for him. Weaver’s blood, she’d never seen nobody write so fast. His pen blurred. Words splashed onto paper. Several hours later, the old guy left with his book and a pile of inky, book-sized paper. After handing the kid fifteen gold coins. She couldn’t complain about him wasting money after that.

  Maybe she should learn how to write better.

  “We had a good evening’s trade.” He took a notebook out of his pocket and wrote down a list, she guessed of the stuff he’d bought last night.

  “In fraying knives.” Foot traffic shifted so far away from them she felt like they all had gooey plague sores. What was with these townies? At least they’d have a private conversation. Nobody got near close enough to hear them talk.

  “Calm down.” The kid wrote another note in his little book. “We’ll get more swords before we leave. Besides, knives are the ale money of any sword business.”

  “Yeah, right. Who told you that?”

  “Margat said that the traders who normally come here always tell her that.”

  “They’re lying.” She stood and kicked at the tavern fence, scuffing her boot on the rock. Swords or not, she was so bored with this town.

  “Why lie to Margat?” The kid glanced up at her. “She’s not our competition. After a meal of her good cooking, I think most people would tell her anything, including the truth.”

  Lorel snorted softly. Maybe. The woman almost cooked as good as her mother, just with different spices.

  The kid turned to Tsai. “Did you see any swords you particularly liked?”

  About time. And she hadn’t even needed to nag him.

  “Liked?” Tsai’s eyes got big enough to swallow all seven moons. “Why would it matter if I like a sword?”

  Lorel sighed. The girl was so dense sometimes.

  “You’re my bodyguard, right?” The kid tilted his head. “You’ll need a sword to protect me.”

  Tsai’s face fell. “Of course.”

  He weren’t going about this right. Lorel glared at him.

  He glared right back and motioned she should button her lip. She snorted at him.

  “How many times have you saved us?” The kid poked his crutch in Tsai’s direction.

  The girl looked up and shrugged. “Never.”

  “You came after me when the Kyridon kidnapped me. More importantly, you rescued the Kyridon from the flashflood, and I know you’re not fond of it. You got Lorel up the cliff after the earthquake.”

  Hey, just leave her out, would he? She’d helped with all that, too.

  “I didn’t do it alone.” Tsai glanced at her like she’d heard the thought.

  “Right. We all work together.” The kid reached out and patted her arm. “We’re a team. And a team needs tools so each person can do their job. That means you need a sword.”

  Tsai smiled a little.

  “Of your own.” He studied her a moment. “One you can bang up whenever you need to without worrying about anybody yelling at you.”

  Who was he kidding? Tsai would never bang up a sword. Not on purpose. Must be he didn’t know the right words. Lorel bit down on her lip to keep from butting into the conversation. He wasn’t doing that bad, for a bookish boy.

  He sighed and leaned harder on his crutch like he was too tired to stand up straight. “I’m trying to say I want to give you a sword of your own.”

  “Crayl swords cost too much,” Tsai whispered.

  The kid snortled. “Have you noticed how much I spend on books? We can afford it. You deserve it. So start watching for a sword that suits you.” He grinned like he’d won a huge bet on the slowest horse in the Imperial horseraces. “That’s an order.”

  Tsai’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, sir, boss.”

  Enough with the mushy stuff, already. Lorel cleared her throat. “So, what else do we buy in this town?”

  “Besides wine and beer?” He thought about it for a moment. “Rice. We won’t be able to get that farther north.”

  She hoped not. She was beyond tired of rice.

  “As many dried fruits and vegetables as they’ll sell us. Any kind of journey provisions.”

  “I’m not talking about food, noodle brain!” Lorel threw up her hands. She was gonna strangle that boy someday. “I mean business stuff.”

  “Oh, that’s harder.” He stared at his mismatched boots, then glanced up at her through his eyelashes. “Tools. Lots of carving tools.”

  Weaver’s chamberpot. More boring stuff. At least Tsai would get her sword today. She’d make sure of that.

  ***

  Viper waltzed into the inn’s common room and did a one-footed jig, twirling with his crutch as a partner.

  “Look at you dance. What has gotten into you?” Margat laughed and turned to Lorel. “Girl, put that monstrous bag down and come have a sip of beer. You look as parched as a late summer corn field. What have you three been up to?”

  Lorel settled the pack’s shoulder strap around his neck. Was she trying to hang him? She’d certainly stopped him from dancing.

  He hadn’t felt like dancing since they ran away from Zedista. It was a good feeling, and he missed it.

  Tsai’dona helped him shift the pack to his shoulder, but he was still too far off balance. He let it slide to the ground. The wind-blasted thing was heavy. The steel carving tools it contained were fairly new and in better shape than he’d hoped to find, and he was intensely proud of them. The set included a wide range of both stone and wood carving tools, and he couldn’t believe his luck at finding the stone-working tools. Steel would stay sharp much longer than the bronze tools he’d expected to buy.

  Margat brought out a tray of brimming mugs.

  “Sing to the Weaver.” Lorel accepted a mug and drained it in a single motion.

  He poured half of his beer into her cup.

  She saluted him before drinking again.

  Tsai’dona rolled her eyes and took a cautious sip.

  To think he’d forgotten they’d need stone-working tools to carve Hreshith bone. Silly sandcrab, was he planning to carve them with his teeth? Lorel would have carved him a bahtdor-sized bellybutton, and then some. Praise the Thunderer the tools showed up under his nose.

  He raised to his toes in another little jig.

  Margat wiped down another table. She looked up and chuckled. “What are you dancing about?”

  “I’m just happy he decided to sell me so many good tools,” he lied. “He sold me his second best set,” he added truthfully, and hoped she wouldn’t notice the fib.

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  He sipped at his beer and considered the question. No need to mention Hreshith bone. No one would believe him, anyway. “We’ll carve scabbards, once we find the right wood. If I can get hold of bahtdor bone when we go near the Setoyan plains, I’ll carve more swords like Lorel’s. I’m good at th
at.”

  “Those swords really are made of bone?” Margat eyed Lorel’s weapons. “I’d wondered about them. So had a lot of other people. The blade traders last night were aching to touch them, but none of them dared ask for permission. You looked very forbidding.”

  “I was bored.” Lorel blushed and grinned. “There weren’t enough swords there to be interesting. Just knives.”

  Tsai’dona sighed and crossed her arms.

  He suspected she still didn’t trust him. “We’ll find you the perfect sword today.”

  “There’ll be many more swords tonight,” Margat said. “Those folks will bring out their finest. Gaila’s one of the top swordsmiths in the city. You’ll have plenty to choose from.”

  “This I like!” Lorel thumped him on the back. “Keep it up, kid.”

  He groaned. Was she trying to knock the breath out of him? “Easy on the merchandiser.”

  She snorted and Tsai’dona rolled her eyes.

  “Hey, the joke wasn’t that lame.” He set his mug on the table and tapped the knapsack with his crutch. “Put all this stuff away, would you? We have more errands to run.”

  Lorel sighed and hauled the knapsack out to the wagon. She was back too quickly to have actually put anything away. “Kyri-thing says it’s tired of children looking in at it. I’m guessing it don’t like babies much.”

  Margat tossed her apron on a table. “I told those brats to stay away from your wagon.” She stormed into the courtyard and started shouting.

  Viper hoped she had more luck than he did. The little monsters all ignored him. He thought they were safe from the Kyridon, but he wouldn’t swear to it. It had only promised not to eat them.

  Lorel smirked at him. The turtle turd. She’d probably encouraged those children to torment the poor creature.

  Tsai’dona handed her mug to Lorel, who drained it. Time to get moving, before she fell over. The turybird wasn’t as healthy as she thought she was.

  Maybe he could con her into staying behind. “You two need to flip a coin and decide who’s going to guard our stock.” He should be able to influence a coin into landing right way up, if he concentrated hard enough. It would make an interesting experiment.

  Lorel shook her head. “No way, kid. We’re both going.”

  “Nobody but a witless child would face down the Kyridon.” Tsai’dona paused, tilted her head toward the doorway where shouts and childish whines still sounded, and laughed. “And Margat will watch our gear closer than ever now.”

  She was probably right about that. But before they left for the next town, he needed to invest in a steel padlock. The Kyridon wouldn’t be patient with intruders forever.

  He led them out of the tavern, through courtyard and deeper into town. Margat’s shouts followed them for two blocks. The local people still avoided them, but they didn’t go around them at such an appalling distance. A few people even smiled at them.

  It was wonderful what spending money could do for a man’s reputation. He might even buy his way into respectability, if he stayed in Crayl for a couple of hundred years.

  “This is the place.” Tsai’dona strolled into an odd-looking shop that looked like it sold ladies’ underwear. Swaths of lace and silk covered the walls. Wisps of gauze lay on a table in the center of the room.

  What was he doing in here? It must be some private girl thing. He started to back out through the doorway.

  Lorel poked him in the ribs. “You got the money, Loom lint. Stay put.”

  Tsai’dona marched up to the old woman standing behind the counter. “Give me your best bastard.”

  His eyes nearly hurdled out of his head. What did this place sell? Abandoned children?

  Lorel nodded approval, looked his way, and laughed out loud.

  The old woman ducked behind the curtain and rattled around in a back room.

  Tsai’dona glanced a silent question at him.

  He quit squirming and pretended nothing was wrong. Girls did the strangest things. He should be used to it by now. But he was not taking a baby traveling with them. Especially not if they expected him to pay for one. That was too close to slavery.

  The old woman pushed through the curtain and handed something long and skinny to Tsai’dona.

  Wrong shape to be a child, so he was safe there. Actually, it looked like a sheathed sword.

  Tsai’dona yanked on it, and steel flashed in the shop’s dim light.

  Blast. It was a sword.

  Lorel was laughing so hard she had to sit down on the floor. “Oh, kid, you’re such a noodle brain.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “You are lower than a sandcrab munching on turtle turds.” He limped closer to the counter and examined the sword. He’d have called it a hand-and-a-half. Bastard was one he hadn’t heard before. Beautifully-patterned Crayl steel, it appeared to be the perfect length for the girl’s height.

  The old woman tossed a length of fabric toward the ceiling.

  Tsai’dona swung the sword two-handed – right, left, right – and slashed the silk into three equal pieces.

  The old woman flipped a piece of gauze into the air.

  With neat, small motions, Tsai’dona sliced it into a dozen ribbons. She looked at him.

  He looked up at the old woman. “How much?”

  They dickered a little, but more for appearances than for any real difference. Her starting price was half as much as he expected to pay.

  Now he knew for certain he’d overpaid last night. He’d bargain harder for the next batch.

  Tsai’dona stroked the pommel of her new sword possessively and smiled at him. Maybe he’d win her trust yet.

  It had started raining by the time they peeled Lorel, who’d fallen asleep, off the floor and started walking again.

  And walking. And walking. He slipped twice, ending up on his knees in a puddle. The same sandblasted puddle.

  “You want me to carry you, kid?”

  “No!” He peered both ways along the rain-slick street. If he didn’t find that shop soon, Lorel would strangle him, but he didn’t want to slip again, either. He was already soaked up to his shoulders, and his knees felt swollen to the size of cantaloupes.

  “Where are we going?” Lorel shortened her stride for the third time. “They’re bringing lots of swords to us tonight. How come we need more?”

  “We don’t.” He glanced up from his footing on the wet cobblestones and grinned. “I’m looking for a battle axe made of Crayl steel. A few of those should bring us a fair profit.”

  “Weaver speed the Shuttle, yes!” She walked a little faster.

  He purposely walked slower.

  Tsai’dona glanced ahead at the turybird and slowed to walk beside him. “Why do they call it ‘Crayl’ steel? Margat told me this town used to be called ‘Maiya’.”

  “A very long time ago, it was.” Finally, someone who appreciated history. “Seven or eight hundred years ago, a wizard called Crayl – that’s the old Zedisti word for Crayfish – noticed that there was a lot of sky iron concentrated in this area. He taught the locals how to mine it and smelt it. Later he taught them the secret of steel. When they got rich, they renamed the town after him.”

  Lorel dropped back beside them. “What happened to the Crayfish guy? Did he get rich, too?”

  “Sort of. The Maiyan-Crayls gave him money and swords, and he went off to fight in a war against a necromancer.” Monsoon caused enormous trouble before Ocean put a stop to his depredations. Too bad necromancers were even more insane than regular wizards. He didn’t want to meet one, but their stories fascinated him. “The swords he gave to the warriors turned the fight, but Crayl was one of many wizards who died in that war. People named him hero and promptly forgot about him.”

  “Shuttle cross the Loom! How do you know all this stuff?” She glared down at him and shook her fist under his nose. “Did you just now make that all up?”

  He laughed and slapped her hand away. “I didn’t make up one word. I read it in a book in Trevor’s lib
rary. The scholar who wrote it down swore it was true, and that he’d seen most of it with his own eyes.”

  “You was reading stuff out of a book hundreds of years old?”

  “Sure, why not?” Some of his books were over a thousand years old. The most expensive ones, at that.

  Lorel put one hand over her eyes. “Weaver’s cold toes.”

  Tsai’dona shook her head. “It’s just a little out of date, that’s all.”

  “Recent history the way wizards count time. Now quiet down, this is the place.” He straightened his shoulders, held his crutch out like a walking stick, and strolled into the smithy.

  “Hundreds of years.” Lorel thumped him on the back. “He’s telling stories so old the Weaver’s forgotten all about them. How dumb.”

  The sweltering forge was dark except for the glow cast by the fire. Hot light blazed upon the smith as he stood almost nude at his forge, pounding on a ringing wedge of metal. Narrow of hip, huge of chest, his bald head and rippling muscles shimmered with rivers of sweat. Scars, old and pale, drew jagged lines of frozen lightning on his straining flesh.

  He looked more like a minor god than any mortal man.

  “Ain’t he gorgeous?” Lorel whispered.

  “Gorgeous doesn’t come near it,” Tsai’dona whispered back.

  Viper poked both of them in the ribs. The man was everything he ever wanted to be, and more. But if he’d looked like that, he wouldn’t be himself, or be here traveling. He’d keep this sweaty little body. Thunderer’s dice, it was disgustingly hot in here. How could the man breathe with all the acrid smoke?

  “Hey, kid,” Lorel whispered a little louder. “Look at them axes!”

  The walls of the forge were lined with axes of all sizes and characters. Huge battle axes hung next to tiny woodcutting hatchets, and all of them had one thing in common. They had obviously been made by a master.

  Lorel reached toward one of the weapons.

  Without looking up, the smith roared, “Don’t touch that, you overgrown imp!”

  She snatched back her hand.

  Viper smothered a chuckle. Only a man as tall as the smith would dare call his turybird an imp.