Dark Magic

by Angus Wells

  Several of the dealers knew the man, confirming the description they had from Darth and adding a few details Varent’s servant had failed to notice. A tooth, they learned, was missing from his upper jaw, lending his voice a slight sibilance, and the thumb of his left hand was cocked from an old break. He was known to come from Gannshold and—as Bracht had suggested—was a half-blood, his father of Lyssian descent, his mother of the Lykard clan. Such visits as he made to Aldarin were infrequent, his most recent ended now, as best the dealers knew, for he had not been seen these last few weeks.

  It was little enough information on which to chase a man across the world but, Calandryll trusted, sufficient that they might pick up his trail. How they would deal with him he put aside for now; just as he put aside the difficulties posed by the sorcerer’s head start. At least it seemed the wizard had made no real attempt to cover his trail, which likely meant he assumed them trapped in Tezin-dar, the apparition left behind in the magical stone no more than vanity, a last insult thrown by a man confident of victory: overconfident, Calandryll hoped.

  Agreeing they had gleaned all they might and should now depart the city swiftly as possible, they concentrated on selecting horses.

  This Calandryll left entirely to Bracht, bowing to the Kern’s superior knowledge of the animals and his obvious experience of horse trading. It took some time, and Calandryll found his patience tried as his comrade haggled enthusiastically, but finally two beasts were purchased from the array of saddle stock. For Katya, Bracht picked a grey, for Calandryll a slightly taller chestnut. Both were geldings, deep-chested and rangy, capable, both Kern and dealer promised, of combining speed with staying power. They led the beasts away to a saddlery, where full harness was bought, and then, with noon approaching, started back to the lodging house.

  Along the way Bracht halted, dismounting and tossing Calandryll his reins, ignoring the question that followed him into the emporium he entered. Calandryll was left with no choice save to wait, wondering what his comrade sought in an establishment devoted to the sale of cosmetics and perfumes. Nor did Bracht offer any explanation when he emerged, and Calandryll concluded that he had purchased some gift for Katya, unlikely as that seemed, for the warrior woman needed no artificial aids to enhance her beauty and wore no perfume that he had ever smelled. Still, Bracht appeared mightily satisfied as he swung astride the grey horse and continued on their way.

  Katya and Tekkan awaited them in the common room and they ate a somber meal, the boatmaster rising immediately he was done to announce his imminent departure. The outgoing tide was shortly due and he wished to inspect the warboat before clearing the anchorage. “Best you leave as soon as you may,” he told them, taking their hands and indicating his daughter with a turn of his head. “Our farewells are said and I’d not prolong the moment. May all the gods go with you, and from Vanu the holy men will send whatever aid they can. May victory be yours!”

  It seemed to Calandryll that his eyes were moist, but his spine was straight as he spun about and marched from the common room and he did not look back.

  Katya watched him leave, her lovely face sad, and her voice low as she said, “He speaks the truth. Best we go.”

  “Aye.” Bracht’s gaze was solicitous as he answered her, but an element of amusement sounded as he gestured at Calandryll. “But first there’s the matter of this outlaw’s appearance.”

  He whispered in her ear and she nodded, going toward the kitchen. Bracht beckoned, grinning wide, and Calandryll followed dutifully to their chamber, wondering how the Kern intended to disguise him. His skin was by now tanned near as dark as Bracht’s, and his features had lost all softness, the gentle contours of his face hardened and thinned. His eyes were no longer wide, but narrowed by the days of staring over the ocean. His shoulders had broadened and he stood taller, his bearing not that of some bookish princeling but a swordsman’s. Equally, the worn leather of his breeks and tunic suggested some itinerant freesword, that impression accentuated by the blade he carried. He was sufficiently altered that he might deceive the cursory examination of one such as Darth, but keener eyes would likely see the similarities with the face depicted on the bill of outlawry, and his sun-bleached hair was clearly that of a Lyssian, like enough to the luxuriant manes of his father and brother as to attract attention.

  Bracht echoed his thought: “That pale hair marks you,” the freesword murmured. “Save for that you could pass as a clansman. So . . .”

  With a flourish he produced his purchase, not a gift for Katya but a small gallipot that, with its lid removed, revealed a thick black paste. Calandryll recognized it as a dye, such as women—and a few vain men—were wont to use to mask the grey age put in their hair.

  Katya entered then, carrying a steaming ewer. “Here,” Bracht instructed, indicating that Calandryll should seat himself by the washstand, “the merchant who sold me this assured me it will darken the greyest head.”

  Katya poured hot water over his long hair and the Kern applied the paste, fetching a comb from his saddlebags to work the stuff evenly through the wet locks. Done, he threw Calandryll a towel, and when his hair was roughly dried, he combed it again, drawing it back from his face and binding it with a length of rawhide in a tail akin to his own. He found a little mirror of polished metal in his gear and held it up to Calandryll’s face: a jet-haired Kern looked back.

  “If you can, put an accent on your speech,” he advised, “and should any doubt, tell them you’re of half-blood stock—your mother came from Lysse and your father was of the clan Asyth.”

  It seemed ironic to assume a background so similar to that of Daven Tyras, and at the same time fitting to turn Rhythamun’s fell trickery to such advantage: Calandryll voiced his agreement, doing his best to emulate the nuances of Cuan na’For.

  “You’ll do,” Bracht said. “You’ll pass readily enough as a freesword. Besides, your proscription makes no mention of your traveling with companions.” He turned to Katya, indicating his handiwork. “How say you?”

  Katya nodded. “I’d take you both for bladesmen, never princes.”

  “Which we are.” Bracht grinned. “And with yet another advantage—few men will look at us while you are present.”

  The smile with which she answered his sally was brief and Calandryll saw that she regretted Tekkan’s leaving deeper than she admitted. It occurred to him that she had been seldom—indeed, perhaps never—far from her father’s side.

  “So,” he said briskly, “I am now become a half-blood out of Cuan na’For. Do we ride toward that land?”

  “Aye!”

  Bracht snatched up his gear, tossed Calandryll’s to him, and took Katya’s arm, steering her from the chamber. Her own saddlebags were packed and ready, and without further delay they settled their account and mounted the waiting horses.

  Before the sun was passed much farther across the wintry sky they passed out of Aldarin’s northern gate, seeming to any who observed them three footloose mercenaries, likely traveling in search of employment in the border reaches.

  NORTHWARD from Aldarin the road followed the coastline to Wessyl, on to Eryn with its shipyards, and thence to the fortress of Gannshold. Eastward, it connected Aldarin with Secca and that city with Hyme and Gannshold’s sister, Forshold, its circumnavigation of Lysse completed by the section winding through the foothills of the Gann Peaks to link the border cities. It was the land’s chief artery, a great channel along which ran the blood of trade, a post road, and—on occasion—the route of marching armies. It was a well-built road, raised up for most of its length on earthworks, drained, and paved with great wide slabs into whose surfaces countless wagons and carts and carriages had worn grooves, the shallowness of which attested to the immutable solidity of the stone. Such repair as was, from time to time, needed was carried out by that city whose aegis lay closest to the damage. The farthest boundaries of each city were indicated by marker stones, the land between those milliary columns claimed by none, save through economic influence,
for there lay the farms and steadings that found a market in the cities for their produce and, in turn, relied upon the manufactories resting safe within the city walls for such items as they could not themselves work.

  It was along this road that the three questers traveled, for it was the swiftest way to Gannshold and while the route necessitated their passing through the cities where Calandryll’s outlawry might well occasion difficulty, they deemed speed the more urgent consideration and trusted in Bracht’s disguising to bring them safely to their destination.

  They rode hard, the Kern’s great stallion setting the pace, the chestnut and the grey proving his judgment of horseflesh as they matched the black in its mile-eating stride. Long before the sun drew close to the western horizon they had left Aldarin far behind, the road running straight through sere meadows where cattle foraged for what little browsing the departing winter allowed them beneath its scattering of thin snow, the vineyards of the river valley a memory as the sky darkened and the wind strengthened off the Narrow Sea. Beside the road, orchards were planted, their trees stark now, thrusting out bare limbs as if in supplication to the risen moon, and far off, as the shadows lengthened, they saw the lights of a farmhouse twinkling. Ahead, Calandryll knew, a caravanserai would be found, set beside the road, about a day’s wagon journey clear of the city; at their pace they would reach it before full dark: they decided to avail themselves of its facilities.

  “Tobias will have come this way,” Calandryll warned, shouting over the thunder of hoofbeats, not yet fully confident of his disguise, “and he’ll doubtless have posted my likeness there.”

  “That of Calandryll den Karnyth,” Bracht yelled back, pausing a moment to think, then grinning as he found a name. “Not Calan of the clan Asyth. Aye, Calan—there’s a ring to it.”

  Calandryll nodded acceptance of his new name, but some doubt must have remained on his face for Bracht added, “Ahrd, man! There’s no one will recognize you now. Save, mayhap, those who knew you before, and them only do they look close. How say you, Katya?”

  He looked across to the woman and she shouted agreement, though her face remained unsmiling and once more Calandryll thought how hard she found this parting from her own folk. In time, he supposed, she would come to accept it: he had, albeit the circumstances of his departure from the familiar confines of Secca and his family had been somewhat different. He smiled at her, seeking to cheer her, but she offered no response beyond a faint twitching of her lips that soon faded back into an expression of grim resolve so that he concluded it were better to leave her be, to let her come to terms with her loss in her own time.

  Whether Bracht had earlier reached that same conclusion, or was merely too enthused to find himself once more ahorse to notice her distress, he was not sure. The former, he suspected, for while the Kern showed no great display of sympathy, but treated her as he had always done, that was likely, he decided after a moment’s thought, the best course. Katya was not the kind to welcome excessive commiseration.

  Indeed, he felt other, more physically pressing concerns. He had been long enough on shipboard that he had come close to forgetting what it was to sit a horse, especially at the pace Bracht set, and now he was reminded that the equestrian mode of travel made demands utterly different to any other. He found himself anticipating their arrival at the caravanserai with increasing eagerness, confident that it would offer baths and soft beds, as his muscles ached dully from the steady pounding of seat against saddle that somehow succeeded in radiating throughout his entire body.

  He was thankful when light showed through the gloom and the Kern eased the stallion down to a walk, instinctively cautious of approaching without first surveying their destination.

  The way station was set a little distance off from the road, surrounded by a chest-high wall of sturdy blocks, its gate standing open, announced by a single large lantern hung from the apex of a vaulting arch. Beyond, the windows were honestly lit, revealing a square building rising two stories to a flat, walled roof, stables and a barn behind. As they entered the courtyard two barefoot boys came running toward them, promising to tend the animals. Calandryll was unsurprised when Bracht insisted on inspecting the stabling himself, though when the Kern suggested he take Katya’s mount while she make herself comfortable within he could not help smiling his approval of the simple courtesy.

  Katya accepted the offer, walking a trifle stiff-legged toward the inn, and Calandryll, feeling himself more than a little abused by his saddle, passed his reins to a boy and limped to the stables.

  They met with Bracht’s acceptance and once the beasts were unsaddled and the children paid to rub them down and see to their feeding, the two men followed Katya into the caravanserai.

  The larger part of the lower floor was occupied by a single chamber, divided into an area at the rear set aside for eating and the rest devoted to casual drinking. A generous fire blazed in a spacious hearth, its heat trapped by the shuttered windows, and several patrons were already settled to their dinners, others seated in the drinking area with mugs of foaming ale or flasks of wine before them. They looked up as Calandryll and Bracht came in, but none paid them more attention than newcomers might usually find, subjecting them to a cursory examination before returning to their own conversations. Of Katya there was no sign and they approached the counter, where a plump, red-cheeked man with pale, fine hair arranged in thin strands across his balding pate greeted them cheerfully. At his back, pinned to a shelf holding earthenware mugs, was notice of Calandryll’s proscription; he started at the sight, drawing his cloak tighter about him to conceal the hand that moved to his sword’s hilt.

  Bracht envinced no such hesitation, but called for ale like any thirsty wayfarer and inquired as to Katya’s whereabouts.

  “Gone to bathe,” the innkeeper replied as he tapped a barrel. “She said you’d be wanting two rooms.”

  “Aye,” said Bracht, “and baths ourselves.”

  “Soon as the lady’s done.” The man set mugs before them, studying their faces with unconcealed interest. “Kerns, are you? Long way from home, eh? Freeswords?”

  Bracht nodded; Calandryll found it difficult to take his eyes from the poster. The balding man saw his interest and grinned. “Ten thousand varre, eh? Handsome reward that. Wonder what he did?” He turned as he spoke, regarding the likeness, then moved to face them again. “The Domm Tobias stayed here, you know. Him and his lady. On a progress, they were, and he had that put up.”

  There was no suspicion in either his gaze or his voice and Calandryll felt himself begin to relax. At his elbow Bracht drank with relish and stared openly at the bill.

  “Aye, it’s a handsome reward,” he murmured, wiping a mustache of foam from his mouth. “I’d not object to earning that, did I encounter him.”

  The innkeeper rested the expanse of his stomach against the counter and shrugged. “Rumor is he’s fled to Kandahar,” he declared as if imparting some secret knowledge. “They say he poisoned his father and tried to murder his brother—the Domm, now, who stayed here—but that failed and he looked for refuge with the Kand rebels. You heard about that?”

  Bracht nodded again, solemnly.

  “So where are you bound?” asked the garrulous in-keeper. “Back home, eh? I’m called Portus, by the way.”

  “Bracht,” said the Kern, and indicated Calandryll with his mug. “This is Calan.”

  “Welcome to you both,” said Portus. “Escorting the lady, are you? Not that she need fear many, from the way she bears herself.”

  “No,” Bracht agreed.

  Portus seemed more interested in his own questions than their answers, the flow of his conversation continuing unabated as he turned to draw himself a mug.

  “So you’re northbound, eh? We don’t see too many Kerns around here. Some freeswords like you every once in a while; maybe the odd horse trader looking to cut himself a better deal than he’d find in Gannshold.”

  Confident now that his disguise was effective, Calandryll c
hose to take a part. Thickening his voice in what he trusted was a fair approximation of Bracht’s accent, he said, “We heard of one but recently. A man named Daven Tyras?”

  “Was a half-blood passed through some while past,” Portus returned. “A closemouthed man, he was; but that, as I recall, was the name he gave.”

  “A man with sandy hair and a broken nose?” Calandryll asked.

  “That’s him,” Portus agreed. “A friend of yours, is he?”

  “We know him,” Calandryll said, grateful for this confirmation: for all they were some weeks behind Rhythamun, at least they were on the right trail. “He trades in horses, out of Gannshold.”

  “Never said where he was going.” Portus shrugged. “In fact, he hardly said a thing. A surly fellow, I thought. No offense to Kerns.”

  “There’s none taken,” said Bracht.

  Portus nodded and, seeing their mugs emptied, scooped them up and filled them unasked. “Didn’t drink much either”—he beamed—“and that, from what I’ve seen, is unlike a Kern. Fond of your ale, you fellows.”

  “Of good ale,” Bracht said.

  “You’ll taste none better.” The fat man tilted his own mug, setting it down with an enthusiastic smacking of his plump lips. “The Alda valley may be famous for its wine, but I reckon we brew some of the best ale, too.”

  He appeared set to engage them in idle talk all evening and Calandryll, feeling his legs and shoulders stiffening, began to wonder how they might escape his loquacity. He was saved from excuses by the woman who stuck her head past a half-opened door to call that the lady was done with her bathing and anyone else requiring a tub should speak up now.

  “These two,” Portus shouted back. Then softer to them, “You’ll not object to sharing a tub, I trust?”