Robb followed closely, alarmed and ready to defend them both with spells and mundane strength. The sight that met his eyes chilled him more than the storm.
An old man, wasted to skin and bones, lay crumpled upon a stark bed that was pushed right up against the narrow cell’s wall, barely made comfortable by a thin pallet and blanket. His image flickered in and out of view, like a dragon in sunlight. His long white hair and beard were matted and yellowed with illness and neglect.
A little ball of blue/white/red witchlight nestled in a window niche high above his head. The light did not flicker or cast shadows. So why did the ancient man fade in and out of reality?
Half the time he looked as transparent as a ghost, but his chest continued to rise and fall with great effort. He hadn’t passed into the void between existences yet.
“Start a fire. He needs warmth,” Robb ordered. He thrust Marcus aside as he raced to the side of the narrow stone bench that served as a bed. “What ails you, elder?” he asked respectfully as he pulled pouches of herbs from his pack.
Marcus busied himself throwing kindling into the rusting brazier beside the bed. The room was small enough that only a little fire would heat the space nicely. He ignited the twigs and leaves with a snap of his fingers and added larger sticks as quickly as he could. At least the old man had prepared for a fire before illness, injury, or just plain old age felled him.
From the fine cut of his stylish robes and trews, Robb guessed that he had come from a noble and wealthy family. Probably a younger son grown beyond usefulness. He and Marcus would have heard of an heir or lord gone missing. After all, they had spent most of the last three years gathering the gossip of Coronnan.
“Save your medicines for yourself, lad,” the ancient waved weakly at Robb’s packets. His voice faded and grew with his flickering image. “Leave here. Quickly. This place is cursed. Don’t get trapped . . .” His breath gushed out of his chest on a dry rattle like leaves stirred in a drying breeze.
At last his form settled into the current reality, a dry husk that no longer held his spirit trapped between worlds. The witchlight died, leaving only the light from the small fire.
Robb gently closed the old man’s staring eyes. “I didn’t even have time to ask his name,” he said sadly. “I’ll hate burying him without a name.”
“At least he did not die alone.” Marcus looked up from the merrily blazing fire. A little heat spread out from the brazier.
Robb and Marcus set about straightening the old man’s limbs. When he lay peacefully on the stone bench, looking comfortable and glad that he no longer struggled through life, Robb searched his pockets for some clue to his identity. His fingers brushed against cool metal disks.
He fished one out and stared at the shiny gold. The soft metal glowed in the gentle firelight. It caressed his fingertips and eyes with an almost living color. His jaw dropped as he recognized the one hundred mark on the old-style coin. The face and inscription did not trigger any memory in him.
“Our fortune is made, Robb. He’s got dozens of gold coins in his pockets. Dragons only know how many more are stashed around this lonely monastery.” Marcus held up a handful of coins. He gulped as he, too, held them up to catch the light.
Robb’s vision fractured into a dozen bright rainbows.
The world tilted.
He fought to retain his balance, eyes focused clearly on the gold coin and nothing else. A fine veil of mist seemed to cover everything.
“The Commune can buy a lot of respectability with these. Not to mention books and equipment for the University,” Marcus said. His voice came from a great distance. “This gold will liven up our games of cartes.”
“We haven’t time to daydream about gold and fortunes,” Robb replied as he placed two of the coins upon the ancient’s closed eyes. A third rested in his pocket. Keeping one coin for himself would hurt no one. And it might give him an edge against survival during his long treks around Coronnan. Unlike Marcus, he had no desire to settle in one place for a long, long time.
He bowed his head a moment in silent prayer. “This man is very dead, Marcus. And he said this place is cursed. We have to get out of here. We need a plan.”
“Not until after the storm passes. We can spend the night searching the place for his stash.”
“Marcus,” Robb began testily. “Marcus! you’re fading into the walls. Marcus, don’t you dare leave me and take your good luck with you!”
“Nice doggy,” Jack said quietly. He dared not move.
The beast growled again and showed even more of its teeth. Saliva dripped onto the dock above the boat.
“Nice doggy.”
“She doesn’t like to be called doggy,” a man replied roughly.
“Good mopplewogger,” Jack said, still not moving.
The dog pricked her ears and sat.
“Nice mopplewogger,” Jack coaxed. “Don’t suppose you remember me, doggy?”
The dog rose up on its long legs growling again.
“Different dog. It’s been ten years, wharf rat. You don’t have to steal the boat. I’d loan it if you asked,” the man said with a chuckle.
“Want to call off your mopplewogger, Aquilla?”
“Ten years and you’re still running from bullies. Want to trade that prissy uniform for a real one?”
Jack dared to look away from the dog long enough to take in Aquilla’s Guild of Bay Pilots uniform of maroon and gold. His weather-beaten face crinkled in laughter.
“I’ve made oaths of loyalty elsewhere. Want to call off the mopplewogger?”
“Lilly, come,” Aquilla said. The shorthaired dog growled at Jack one last time before returning to her master’s side. She sat on Aquilla’s foot and leaned her head into him. Absently the pilot scratched her ears.
“So what kind of trouble you running from this time, wharf rat?”
“Witch-sniffers. And I have a name now. Old Baamin decided I wasn’t too stupid to have a name after all. I’m Jack.” Jack scrambled onto the dock. His clothes sagged and dripped. He must indeed look like the wharf rat he had been as a child. Aquilla had rescued him when bullies had stolen his food and beaten him nearly senseless.
“Your loyalty to the University of Magicians was misplaced ten years ago. It still is. You should have come to work for me. Not many men have an affinity for a mopplewogger.”
“I don’t seem to have any kind of bond with this one.” Jack held out his hand for the dog to sniff. She growled again and he jerked his hand away from her all-too-large teeth.
“That’s because she caught you trying to steal my boat. You look like you need a meal and some dry clothes.” Aquilla jerked his head toward the cottage above the dock. “Is that a palace guard’s uniform underneath all that river muck?”
“Yes.” Jack tried to wring some water out of the sodden wool tunic.
“You’ll be better off as a Bay Pilot. Every government recognizes the worth of the Guild. Even the Gnuls. Not so the palace guard. Once the Gnuls depose King Darville, you’ll be out of a job and quite likely become fuel for their next bonfire. But without the Bay Pilots, no one gets through the mudflats to deep water and the trading ships. We’ll always have work.” He negotiated the steep path up to his home. Lilly leaped eagerly ahead of him. Jack followed more slowly. His wet boots slipped on the river clay that packed the path.
“The Gnuls had better not find out about your mopplewogger, then,” Jack added. “One hint of how these dogs smell the differences in water depth and salinity to show you the way through the channels of the mudflats and they’ll burn you all for magicians.”
“They wouldn’t dare.” Aquilla whirled around and faced Jack, eyes wide with horror.
“They’d dare. One of them just accused me of witchcraft because I failed to pursue a woman he chose to question. Her only crime seemed to be that she was single and spoke with a foreign accent.” Just like Katrina. “The sniffer had no evidence; no complaints against her; nothing. He just ‘smelled’ mag
ic in her vicinity.”
“Tomorrow there will be another hundred witch-sniffers in the capital. I’m to retrieve them from the port at high tide.” Aquilla’s face drained of color.
“Make sure your mopplewogger stays hidden belowdecks.”
“Always do. But, Jack, what are we going to do? Pretty soon there will be more witch-sniffers than mundanes in the city.”
“That is going to present a problem.”
CHAPTER 7
Vareena sat before the sparkling fire in the central hearth, contemplating her fate. Not long now. She’d miss Farrell when he passed on. But his death gave her a chance at freedom.
Freedom.
She tasted the word and liked the feel of it in her mouth and her spirit.
Rain spat upon the flames through the smoke hole in the thatched roof. One of the glowing splinters of wood on the edge of the blaze sputtered and died. She didn’t bother reigniting it. It had withered to mostly ash now anyway. Like Farrell.
Her spindle lay idle at her feet. She just could not concentrate on keeping her threads smooth and free of slubs while the storm raged and her ghost sat alone up in the abandoned monastery.
He’d pass soon. The fever had returned yesterday, stronger than before. He had no interest in cartes, or tales, or even the chicken stew with pickled beets. A part of her heart sobbed with the coming grief.
But his passing would give her freedom. She fingered the silver amulet through the protective cloth of her shift. Her father and brothers must never find it. They’d confiscate it and sell it for sure. In their eyes women had no rights and could own nothing but the dowry determined at her coming of age.
She’d take her two cows and three chickens with her.
In the outside world, women could own property and select their own husbands. Farrell had promised her that as well as the three acres in Nunio.
Neither she nor her ghost understood what had brought him here to the sanctuary of the monastery. He had wandered in two years ago, seeking a night’s shelter after becoming separated from a trading caravan that was headed for the pass into SeLenicca. After that first night he had not been able to leave. He did not remember dying.
She only knew that he brightened her lonely days, made her feel useful and important. And now he offered her freedom.
At a price. His death.
The wind howled around her father’s cottage. Vareena shivered and drew her shawl closer about her. She should have gone to the ancient monastery hours ago. Farrell needed her. He felt the cold so acutely. She would take him her extra blanket though he usually refused the little comforts she offered. She should have gone to him before noon, as she usually did. But the storm had come upon them quickly and she had been hard pressed to get the villagers, sheep, and plow steeds under shelter. Already the creek threatened to flood.
The ghost needed her. She sensed him passing into his next existence, finally. He’d lingered between this world and the void for two years, neither here nor there. Neither alive nor dead. A nameless man—he’d admitted that Farrell was but the name of his boyhood hero, a man he wished to emulate—lost to his loved ones. Only Vareena cared for him. Cared about him.
No one, not even a ghost deserved to die alone. Over the years she’d sat beside five other ghosts as they finally gave up this existence. None of them had lasted more than two years. She’d been only seven when she sat the death watch with her first ghost. Her mother had died suddenly and left Vareena the odd destiny to care for the ghosts who periodically appeared in the abandoned monastery, a calling inherited by the women of her family for nearly three hundred years. They were the only ones who could see the ghosts and knew what they needed and how to provide for them.
Suddenly Vareena stood up. “I’m going back up there,” she announced to her father and five brothers. Something tugged at her senses. She couldn’t sit here listening to the wind any longer.
“Stay, Vareena. The storm,” Ceddell, her father, objected. He whittled a toy sheepdog for his four-year-old grandson.
“Let this one go, Eena,” Yeenos, the second oldest brother said, looking her directly in the eye. “Your ghost is just a drain on our supplies. No work, no food. That’s the rule, for everyone but your s’murghin’ ghosts!”
“He’s lost between here and the void. I can’t allow his soul to depart unguided,” Vareena stated.
“Maybe there isn’t really a ghost at all. You’re the only one who can see them. Maybe you’re feeding a bunch of outlaws. Why should we take necessary supplies away from our families to feed a bunch of criminals and repair their building. We could use some of those finely dressed stones ourselves,” Yeenos continued, his voice rising with his passion. “I say we tear down that cursed building.” His fist clenched as if he needed to pound something, or someone.
Vareena backed away from his temper. He’d never hit her before, but a number of men in the village had crooked noses and missing teeth from violent connections with his fists.
“I’ll go with you, Eena.” Uustass, the eldest of the brood, stood up to join her. “Stargods know, we’ve never been able to keep you from your duty. Might as well do our best to take care of you when you get a calling.”
“Stay, Uustass.” She waved him back to his stool and the leather he braided for new steed harnesses. “You’ll only catch a chill and be miserable for weeks. Bad enough I’ll have to take soup and poultices to half the village in the morning. I don’t need to tend you as well. Stay with your children and tell them stories so the storm doesn’t frighten them.”
Uustass had lost his wife in childbed last winter. He always seemed lost now unless Vareena gave him something specific to do.
“Take him, or you stay,” her da commanded. “Lost your mam to a storm. Not lose you.” His voice carried the weight of years of experience leading the village, judging misdeeds, and deciding the crop rotation and beast fertility.
No one disobeyed him when he used that tone as if he begrudged each word.
Vareena was tempted.
“Very well. Uustass, take the cloak I oiled yesterday. There’s soup in the pot and bread in the hearth oven for supper. Serve yourselves when you get hungry. I don’t think this will take long.” She fetched her own garment from the row of hooks by the low door. Farrell wouldn’t need supper. She knew he would find his way out of his body and into the void this night. Ghosts always passed on during wild storms like this, as if they needed the wind to guide them to their next existence.
As she opened the door, a powerful gust nearly blew her back into the main room of the cottage. “Stargods, I hope I’m not too late.”
Uustass took her arm and guided her up the hill to the ancient building on the crest, mostly hidden by trees. His stocky body shielded her from the wind. For her own comfort she blessed him for being so stalwart and ready to aid her when the rest of her people would shun her for her contact with ghosts. Perhaps Uustass hoped to communicate with his recently deceased wife through Vareena’s ghosts. Six moons and he still had not accepted the loss of his life mate.
Nothing but ill luck stalked those who communed with ghosts. She’d known that for years.
She fingered the silver amulet again, praying that her luck was about to change. Stargods only knew, her family had suffered their share of grief, with the death of her mother, grandmother, and sister-in-law, with her need to become mother to her family at the age of seven. But they’d been blessed as well. Blessed in ways the villagers rarely recognized. She had five healthy brothers. Two of them were married and helping run their wives’ family farms. Her father continued as a wise judge and leader despite his reluctance to utter more than four words at a time. The village prospered most years. Since the war with SeLenicca, trading caravans used the nearby pass more often, bringing trade goods for surplus crops. Even now, when Winter stores grew thin and new crops had yet to ripen, they all had enough to eat and more to share with the ghost.
But he’d be gone after tonight. She choked back
a sob. The ghosts were her friends. They listened patiently as she explored the problems of growing up the only girl in a household of brothers, the only sensitive in the village, the only woman in a position to care for all those around her, family and villagers alike. The ghosts understood her.
“Almost there, little sister.” Uustass helped her up the last few steps of the broken path to the gatehouse.
The wind ceased to pound at her senses the moment she stepped within the massive walls of the building. But then her ears started ringing in the comparative silence. She clutched her temples, trying to make sense of the noise. A hum, deep in her mind, at her nape announced an eerie portent.
“What ails you, Eena?” Uustass clutched both of her elbows.
She leaned into him, using his solid presence to balance the sudden numbness between her ears.
“The ghost is passing. We must hurry!”
“I wish I understood this strange compulsion of yours to tend these bizarre beings. Yet you can’t summon the ghosts of our loved ones. You don’t even know if these ghosts were once human.”
“Whatever they are when they come to me, they were human once. I must help them . . . him. Something is amiss. Hurry, Uustass.” She pushed him out of her way and dashed through the relative comfort of the tunnel beneath the gatehouse into the pelting rain of the courtyard. The day seemed darker and heavier here than out in the teeth of the storm.
Her feet automatically took her toward the cell where she had placed the little ball of cold light so that Farrell did not have to pass his last day in darkness.
Natural green firelight flickered beneath the closed doorway. Vareena stopped short, heedless of the cold sheets of water that poured upon her from the leaking gutter of the colonnade.
“Now what ails you?” Uustass sighed wearily.
“I did not light the fire.”
The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus) Page 6
