“You’d have to fight me for it. C’mon, let’s get out of here before I do something I’ll regret much later.”
“You go on, " Milo said. “I’m going to watch the window for just a little while longer."
“Well, don’t drool all over yourself." Naile made a grunting sound and strode past a few more shops, one a tailor’s where a thin man visible through an open door was fitting Zechial with a heavy dark blue tunic. He looked into the doorway of a dry goods shop, nodding a greeting to a man measuring powders behind a counter. He passed a blacksmith’s, then stopped at a two-story tack shop, where an old man on a ladder was replacing shingles. The old man had broad shoulders, but the rest of him was slim, the flesh hanging loose on his arms. His hair was white and wispy like cobwebs, and it was teased by a slight breeze. When he turned slightly, displaying a small chin and a hawkish nose, Naile thought that the man reminded him a little bit of a maitre d’ at Michael’s in Brooklyn, so he watched for a few moments.
The old man was not so neat-handed as the maitre d’, and he fumbled with the tiles. One slid and fell, nearly striking Naile and splitting in two when it hit the ground. The man leaned back on the ladder, looking to see where the lost shingle landed, and in that moment he lost his grip on the top rung. His arms beat circles in the air, as he and the ladder teetered backward.
Naile reacted quickly, stepping forward and slamming the ladder back against the building. The man continued his fall, but Naile got under him. He spread his arms and awkwardly caught the old man, cradling him like a baby. Miraculously, the man wasn’t badly hurt. Naile gently set him on his feet.
“You all right?”
The man’s hands shook, his lips trembling as he tried unsuccessfully to thank Naile. He rubbed at his shoulder.
“Let’s get you inside," Naile said. When the old man didn't protest, Nail escorted him in the tack shop and sat him in the only chair he saw, in the back corner next to an open window. The sunlight spilled in on the man’s age-spotted face. His fingers continued to twitch, and his mouth worked. Naile kneeled in front of him and tried to get a good look at the man’s eyes, wanting to make sure he was all right. They were clear and dark, not rheumy like a lot of old people’s.
After a few moments, he managed to talk. “Gertha, she told me not to go up there on that roof. To hire that done. Said I don’t listen to her.” He swallowed and gripped the arms of the chair. “She’s right. I don’t. And I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.” He raised his wiry white eyebrows.
“Naile Fangtooth.”
“Thank you, Naile Fangtooth." He leaned forward and touched Naile’s arm. “Jake. Name’s Jake Droans. I haven’t seen you in Hart before. Come with them merchants?”
Naile nodded.
“Never liked them merchants stopping here. Always thought they cut into some of our business. But after today, I’m thinking you folks can come through anytime.”
Naile rose and made a move to leave.
“Wait. Wait, young man. What do you sell? What wagon is yours? I’ll be needing to stop and buy some of your wares. Least I can do.”
Naile tipped his head. “I’m not selling anything, Jake. I’m just a guard. And I’ve some time on my hands this afternoon. How about I fix your roof while you sit there and catch your breath?”
The old man beamed, the smile reminding Naile again of the maitre d’ at his favorite fancy restaurant. “Only if you let me pay you.”
“You don’t need to pay me. I’m happy to help.”
“I insist, young man.”
It was Naile’s turn to smile. “Well, I wouldn’t want to insult you.” The coins in Naile’s pocket didn’t last long, but they were well spent. His first stop was a bathhouse, where he indulged himself in the hot water for nearly an hour. It was even better than the bath Ludlow Jade had arranged after their brief stint in jail. For the first time, Naile felt wholly human. Then he stopped by the inn, for steaming stew and fresh bread, followed by an entire apple pie for desert that he’d bought at the bakery. He put himself up for the evening at the inn, sinking into a soft bed, pulling a quilt over his head, and quickly falling asleep on a feather pillow. He dreamed of the law firm, of a case he’d been working about a movie production company borrowing too many elements from a short story about vampires and werewolves. The case was one of those proverbial slam-dunks; it was just a matter of how much money the short story author . . . and thereby the law firm . . . was going to walk away with. He dreamed of other cases, too, and of the clerks he played the game with. He woke up wondering what his fellow players were doing, and if they’d seen him disappear when he picked up the miniature. Had they disappeared, too? Vanished to someplace else in this medieval world? Or were they all safe and warm in their apartments, riding the subway and reporting to work each day and speculating on what happened to him?
He made it back to the caravan just in time to refuse Ludlow Jade’s hardtack breakfast; he’d eaten eggs and ham at the inn, washed down with three glasses of apple cider.
Milo’s eyes were venomous slits. “Zechial told me where you’ve been.”
“Yeah, I saw him at dinner at the inn last night.”
“Saidyou had money.”
Naile shrugged.
Milo drew his lips into a thin line and waited for Naile to explain his good fortune but before Milo could press the matter, Naile was past him and headed toward the wagon belonging to the priests of Glotho-rio the Coin Gatherer. After a moment, Milo stormed after him.
The priests were brushing the horses, one of them obviously a skilled farrier working on the lead horse’s hooves. The priest who had spent all of his tattoos during the fight with the undead had acquired three new ones somewhere in the village. Two were on the top of his head, both black, one resembling a bird with outstretched wings, the other a snake-like squiggle. The third was on his right forearm and looked like a letter from a foreign alphabet.
“I heard someone say you can divine things. ’’ Naile was talking to this latter priest.
The priest stepped away from the horse he was grooming and brushed his hands on a cloth tucked into the belt of his robe. “What knowledge do you seek? Naile Fangtooth, correct?”
“Quite a bit of knowledge, actually.’’ This came from Milo, who moved up to Naile’s shoulder. “We’d like to find out how two friends of ours are doing . . . Yevele and Ingrge ... a battlemaid and an elf. ’’
“Ludlow Jade’s two absent guards,” the priest said.
“And we want to know about the undead that attacked the caravan. If someone sent them and why,” Naile cut in.
“And about a place named Quag Keep, ” Milo continued.
The latter brought no hint of recognition from the priest.
“Divining magic is my specialty,” the priest said. “I can unravel many mysteries for you. ” He closed his eyes and held his hands in front of Naile’s face. “The answers are near, and they are important for your future.”
“Great!” Naile reached into his pocket.
“But it will cost you,” the priest said.
“Yeah, I figured that.” Naile held out the four coins he had remaining — two silver pieces and two coppers.
The priest shook his head. “You will need to gather more coins than that. Our magic is not inexpensive.”
“Hope you had a good time last night, Naile.” Milo dug at the dirt with his heel, turned and returned to Ludlow Jade’s second wagon.
Naile clenched his hands, angry at himself for spending nearly all the money, angry at the priests for wanting coins for every act. He glanced over his shoulder at the small, tidy business district. He had just enough coins for another night in the inn, and since the caravan was staying another day he’d see if that same, wonderful room was still available.
FOURTEEN
A Living Darkness
The darkness was absolute and palpable in the cell deep in the bowels of Quag Keep. Torchlight hadn’t struck the walls in quite a few years, of this the p
risoner was certain. He hadn’t seen anything but utter black since he’d been brought here. And that, he suspected, was long, long months ago. In the first few weeks, he’d carefully noted the passage of time, this based on visits by what passed for prison guards ... all of them unseen and unhuman . . . when he woke and slept and felt hungry, when he guessed it was morning above and outside.
But after a few weeks the rhythm of the guard visits and his sleeping patterns altered, and so he could no longer tell one day from the next. He suspected that many months had passed because his beard stretched practically to his waist now. His fingernails had also grown long, and initially he kept them this way, intending to use them as claws against a guard or his captor. But no one came close enough, and so he finally filed them against the wall.
The wizard had given up on trying to make out any features of his prison. He was chained, and so he couldn’t quite reach the cell doors, and the way his hands were bound, he couldn’t make the knitting gestures necessary to cast the simplest of spells. Even if he could move his fingers with any degree of accuracy, he hadn’t the energy to summon a spark of magic. Not anymore. He was fed little and a few days apart — by a creature he couldn’t see and could only guess was large by the loud rasping sound of its breathing. His lips were cracked from lack of water, and his throat was parched. His last meal had been purposely salty.
The scents of the place offered him little means to discern what was going on around him. He could smell human waste, the rankness of his robes, the mortar between the ancient stones. He could hear footsteps above him once in a while, these loud and sometimes shuffling, giving his imagination rise to what could be making them. He could taste the staleness in the air and the coppery spike of blood — one of his teeth was infected and rotting, the pain from it annoying.
He passed the time by dreaming, by mentally reciting the words to spells that he’d personally written in beloved, thick tomes that were far beyond his reach, and by remembering better days and other worlds. Often he thought about death, wondering what it would be like, and occasionally praying for it to claim him soon and end this miserable existence. But on those occasions he scolded himself; he’d never been one to entirely give up hope.
The wizard was talking to himself at the moment, listing the ingredients for a potion he’d been working on some time ago to help vegetable plants resist cold weather and produce into the beginning of winter. He knew it was getting cold outside, as the stone beneath his bare feet and against the one wall he could reach was getting cooler and the dampness was clinging. He stopped talking when he heard a rattling sound, like the flicking tail of a snake. He smelled sulfur.
“Pobe,” the wizard said.
The rattling continued, growing louder, then fading. “Yesss, Jalafar-rula. I have come to visssityou again. Have you been longing for another chat? It has been quite a while since I stopped here.”
The wizard said nothing and closed his eyes. Jalafar-rula’s jailer was utter blackness, no use looking for something that matched the dark of his surroundings.
“Or do you prefer the sssilence of your cell and wish for me to go?” The rattling began again, irregular this time. “No answer? Then I will leave you to your lonelinesss.”
There was the sound of something gliding across the stone floor and a faint gurgling.
“Wait.” The wizard stepped forward, as far as his chains would reach. “Do not leave yet, Pobe.”
The rattling became soft and even, like a cat’s purr. “You want to talk, Jalafar-rula?”
The wizard tried to moisten his mouth so his voice wouldn’t crack and he wouldn’t appear so hopeless. “Tell me ...” He hesitated, not wanting to make a request. Any request would be considered begging and would make his captor superior.
“Yes, Jalafar-rula?”
“Tell me what is happening,” he said finally. This was the first time he’d asked for news of the outside, and the wizard imagined that his captor was smiling at this small victory.
“Your pawnsss, Jalafar-rula, they are not long for this world you’ve brought them to. Five are dead, four from your first company, and the singer from the second. That last assignment brought Fisk no joy, my old friend. He told me that he rather fancied the music.’’
“I don’t believe you.”
There was an odd sound, like parchment being crumpled. The wizard realized it was his captor laughing.
“Yesss, you believe me, Jalafar-rula. I’ve no reason to lie to you. Not here, and not now. Not when I am winning.”
A silence settled heavily between the two, and for many minutes the only sound was the wizard’s shallow breathing.
“Jalafar-rula, my puppet Fisk will be successful in killing all of them. He has never failed me in all these yearsss. He goes after the elf and the woman now. Your battlemaid has such fire in her heart. Pity that Fisk will soon extinguish her flames. Oh, and the thief, too, the one from the first company that slipped between my puppet’s fingers. Fisk has promised that the thief’s death will be especially slow. I look forward to hearing his report.”
There was a sharp intake of breath. And in response more of the crumpling sound.
“Leave them be, Pobe,” the wizard pleaded. “They can’t hurt you, and they can’t stop you. I wasn’t able to reach them before — ”
“Before I brought you here to be my honored and only guessst?” “They don’t know how important they are. ’’
“They are wormsss, Jalafar-rula.”
“Then why aren’t you dealing with them? Why do you rely on minions?”
“You know I don’t like to be long from this place or the woods, that 1 prefer now to have minions see to the lesser tasks. Slaying those other-worlders is necessary, but can be managed by my puppet. It gives him sssomething to do. It lets him be useful.”
“They don’t know what rests on their shoulders. They can’t hurt you, I say again. And they can’t win. They don’t even know why they are here. They don’t know I brought them. Why not let them live out their lives in this world? Why not let them be?”
The rattling started again, harsher and louder than before. When it quit, the wizard held his breath, listening. Overhead, something large clumped across the floor.
“Jalafar-rula, you think me a fool! While they live, you have hope, and they have hope. And while they walk the face of this world, there is a chance they can foil my plansss. They might stumble upon their usefulness. They might try to be heroes. There will be no rescue for you, or for their earthen realm. They must die.”
“Pobe!” The wizard managed to raise his voice, and he tugged on the chains with what little strength he had. “I will find others and bring them here. My magic will not elude me forever.”
“Your magic will elude you long enough, Jalafar-rula. Fisk will slay them all, your company. But you ... I will keep you alive ... so we can have these pleasant chatsss.”
The wizard spat. “Pobe, you keep me alive only because I am a conduit between their world and ours. Because I am a link to the varied planes. You need me because you need that link open.”
“Yesss, Jalafar-rula. I need you for that reason.”
The wizard heard something gliding across the stone. The rattling that accompanied it was soft, almost soothing now. A moment more, and there was silence. The wizard knew Pobe was gone.
FIFTEEN
An Ill-mannered Awakening
It was the hour just before dawn, the sky a pale blue-gray that lightened as it neared the horizon. But the horizon couldn’t be seen because of a foggy silver-gray mist that hovered above the pond and blanketed the ground, obscuring the trees to the east and the town to the west, even though it was a mere sixty yards away. The mist lent a peaceful atmosphere to the land where the caravan slumbered, looking like a weathered oil painting and making everything seem hushed. There was the muted cry of a hawk, answered in the distance by its hunting mate. There was the faint rustle of canvas and tarp the chill breeze stirred. A chorus of snores was
the loudest sound, this coming from caravan guards sleeping under wagons, and even it seemed soft this morning.
The merchants had done well in Hart, selling more than expected, and in turn buying some goods to sell farther north and back in the city. A few of the merchants slept in their wagons, protective of their wares. Most slept in the inn, as did a handful of guards. But they would be rising soon and heading to the next village.
Hart was peaceful and small, and so there being little threat, only two guards were on duly in the hour before the sun came up. One was an employee of the cheesemaker, the other was a disgruntled Milo.
Milo was thinking less and less of Wisconsin and the lake, the pad-dlewheel boat he took rides on. Instead, he was thinking about this land and his weapons, his work with the caravan and what might be ahead on the trail. This place was seeming more like home, and sometimes he had to concentrate to remember his real name —Martin Jefferson. He dug his fingernails into the palm of his sword hand and tried to rattle off the titles of his treasured hardcover fantasy novels, the ones on the top shelf in his bedroom. The Knight, Return of the King, The Two Towers ... he didn’t have that many, why couldn’t he remember more? He tried to recite them again, as he took in all the soft sounds of the campsite, at the same time scanning to the east.
He was being diligent in his task as caravan guard, partly to fulfil his responsibility to Ludlow Jade, but also to relieve his boredom . . . and to keep his mind off Yevele, wherever she was, and Naile, who was sleeping on a soft mattress in a warm room.
“Damn Naile,” Milo cursed. “Those coins could have been put to better use. They could have paid those priests to use some of their magic to answer our questions. Better use than filling his belly and putting his head on a feather pillow. Jealous, maybe I am a little, but—” “Shhhhhh!” The cheesemaker's guard had his finger to his lips. “Milo, I think I heard something.”
Milo squinted and cocked his head. All he could hear was the gentle flapping of canvas and tarps, and the soft snoring of guards sleeping under the wagons.
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