The Magic Mines of Asharim

by Pauline M. Ross

  I heaved open the hut door and raced for the barge. It was a very short distance, no more than thirty or forty paces, but I felt like a caterpillar crawling across a leaf while the bird hovers overhead. It only needed one warrior to turn and spot us, one voice raised in alarm, one arrow dispatched into the sky…

  I reached the canal bank above the barge and leapt. Turning as I landed, I saw Xando running some way behind me, white-faced, glancing fearfully around. He reached the bank only a few heartbeats behind me – and stopped.

  My precipitous arrival had set the barge drifting away from the wharf, so there was now a sizeable distance of water between them. The barger hastily reached for a pole to pull us back, but it was slow, too slow. We didn’t have time.

  “Jump!” I hissed at Xando.

  Grim-faced, he took three steps back, then ran for it, hurling himself into the void, flying over the gap above the water and crashing onto the deck with a yelp.

  “Get him below,” the barger mouthed at me, reaching for the towing rope.

  I tried, I really did, but Xando was winded and I could hardly drag him.

  It was too late. The noise of his fall attracted the notice of some of the Hrandish.

  At first they were just puzzled. “Hoy! Where did you come from?”

  Then, “Throwers!”

  The chase was on. The barger grabbed the towing rope suspended above the water from poles, and began to pull us along. Our progress was painfully slow, and it was a matter of moments, it seemed to me, before some of the warriors were alongside us, and scrabbling for their bows.

  As the barger hauled on the rope, his muscles straining with effort, I watched our pursuers. First one primed his bow and reached for an arrow – I flamed it before he could fire, and he dropped bow and arrow with a screech of surprise. Then a second one. When they were so close, it was easy to pick off the arrows with precision.

  Now more of them were chasing up the canal bank – both sides of the canal. My head bobbed from side to side, trying to watch all of them at once. We were picking up speed. There was no current in the canal, so the barger’s strong arms were enough to get us moving fast, but the warriors could run faster. They didn’t even slow down to nock arrows to bows.

  Something crashed into the deck and Xando yelled in shock, wrapping his arms round his head. A smooth, round stone from a sling. Demons, I couldn’t burn stone! But the sling, perhaps…

  An arrow whined over my head and almost without thought I set it aflame. My head was spinning, trying to see where the next one would come from, trying to destroy weapons without injuring the men carrying them.

  Another stone, this time against the side of the barge, so that we were tilted slightly off course.

  “The rudder!” yelled the barger.

  I grabbed for it. I’d seen Morna steer often enough, I knew how it worked, but still it was surprisingly difficult to get the barge heading straight again. And when I was looking forwards, I couldn’t watch for arrows.

  A thump, and the barger screamed. My mind was filled with his pain. By the One, he was hit! A stone from a sling had caught his arm, and he crouched doubled over in agony. Our forward movement slowed. I leapt forward, grabbing the towing rope to get us moving again. Curled around his damaged arm, the barger crawled back to the rudder.

  More stones fell around us, some sploshing into the water. Breaking glass tinkled. Xando scrabbled round the deck on all fours gathering stones and lobbing them back. One hit a warrior in the eye, and he fell with a shriek. I caught sight of a man wielding a sling, and I flamed it in his hands as he tried to fit a stone into it. He screeched and fell back.

  There were only a couple of them still pursuing us now, both with metal spears which were beyond my powers to destroy. Speed was our only hope.

  I hauled on that tow rope until my arms screamed with pain, but gradually the spear men were gaining on us. Closer and closer, arms lifted to aim…

  Abruptly it went dark. I squeaked and stopped hauling, and the barge drifted onwards. We were in the tunnel that passed beneath the walls of Brinmar, dank and gloomy. Water dripped onto my face.

  “Keep… pulling…” the barger gasped.

  I pulled, and the semi-circle of brightness at the far end grew. Before long we popped out into the open again.

  “Wheel…”

  I looked around, and on the western bank saw a large metal wheel with a handle. We drifted nearer to it, and as we floated nearby, I leaned over the side to grab the handle and pull the barge closer.

  “You want me to turn this?”

  He nodded. Draped over the rudder, he was close to passing out from the pain, his face grey.

  I tried, but my arms had no strength in them. I couldn’t shift it at all.

  A splosh beyond the tunnel, then another. A glimmer in the tunnel. The two spear men were in the water, wading through the tunnel. It was shallower than I’d realised. I heaved on the wheel again, but it wouldn’t move. Demons, I was going to have to flame those men.

  Just as they emerged into the light, a wave of water caught them and swept them off their feet, and back down the tunnel. I was too stunned to move. Where had that come from? Not from us, we weren’t moving enough to raise a wash.

  “Other way…” the barger croaked.

  “What?” The wheel – I was turning it the wrong way. I tried the opposite way and it worked! A clanking noise behind me indicated that the portcullis under the bridge was descending. With a heavy clunk, it fell into place.

  We were safe.

  I scrambled back to the barger. “Are you all right?” Stupid thing to say, of course he wasn’t. I could feel his pain as strongly as if it were my own. I laid one hand on his shoulder, and felt a surge of warmth in him. That helped him, just a little. “What can I do?”

  “Healer…” he mumbled.

  Ah! We had a healer. “Xando?”

  He was sprawled on hands and knees, chest heaving, shock written on his face.

  I crossed the three steps to him, and pushed him with my foot. “Up you get. Your services are required.”

  He whimpered. “Is it safe?”

  “Demons, Xando! What kind of a man are you? Yes, it’s safe now.”

  He coloured. “Sorry. Better with a sword in my hand.”

  I found that hard to believe, and I was about to say so when the barger groaned. It was a timely reminder. “Never mind that. You have a flicker that can heal – so heal the barger. He’s injured.”

  “Ah. Yes, so he is. What is it, a broken arm? I can deal with that.” He reached for one of his flickers and crooned to it for a while, while I paced restlessly, biting my tongue to stop myself yelling at him to get on with it. Eventually he set the flicker down on the barger’s bare arm.

  The barger’s eyes flew open. “Oh, that’s… amazing.” His pain vanished as suddenly as a candle being snuffed out.

  As Xando smugly retrieved his flicker, I said, “It’s worked then? You’re healed?”

  “The pain has gone, yes. There’s a warmth in there and I can feel... something happening. The bones mending I suppose. That is… quite astonishing. Seen it done, but never realised…” He sat upright, still cradling the injured arm with the other hand. “My thanks, Master.”

  “Xando. I am Xando.”

  “I know. And the Lady Flethyssanya Dre’allussina.”

  “That is my old name,” I said. “I am Allandra now.”

  “Ah.” He smiled at me, that wide grin full of amusement. “A beautiful name. How appropriate.”

  Was he flirting with me? I blushed, and then bit my lip, trying very hard to compose myself. “Since you know our names, may we know yours? I should like to thank you properly for helping us.”

  He made me a small bow. “I am Zakkarvyn. Or just Zak.”

  “Which do you prefer people to use, Zakkarvyn or Zak?”

  “You can call me Zak.” There was just a hint of emphasis on ‘you’.

  “Then thank you, Master Zak.”
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  Another, deeper, bow. “Entirely my pleasure, Lady.”

  Xando clicked his tongue. “It is disrespectful to shorten your name.”

  “Says the man who hides his true name from the world altogether,” Zak shot back.

  Xando glared at him.

  Zak just grinned even more widely. “Welcome to Brinmar, my friends.”

  26: Brinmar

  “Zak! Are you all right?”

  The shout from the bank made me jump.

  Zak heaved a dramatic sigh. “We’re fine, now. Where were you? We could have done with some help here.”

  Two throwers came running out of the bushes at the foot of the wall, one small and delicate, the other plump, lumbering along behind his friend.

  “Tren had a flicker on the wall watching the camp,” the slender one said. “By the time we got it down, the action was all over. Can you believe it, we missed the whole thing. Ah, Xando. Here you are again.”

  They jumped lightly onto the barge, setting it rocking, and clapped Xando heartily on one shoulder as they passed him by. “And this must be—?” They turned to me.

  “I’m Allandra, although you might have heard my former name.”

  “Ah. Yes. I am Berendort, and this is Tren. How delightful you made it here safely.” Tren giggled.

  “Were you sent to help?” I said coldly. “You were not much use to us inside the wall. The Hrandish trying to kill us were on the outside.”

  The plump one looked embarrassed, but his friend laughed merrily. “Oh, but we never expected you to make it. We were certain you would be full of arrows. We were just here to make sure no goats from the hill tribes got inside if there was trouble.”

  “And what about Zak? He could have been killed. There were arrows flying everywhere. His arm was broken.”

  Berendort laughed again, his mind showing no guilt, so I let it drop. He was one of the desert people, and they were a strange, child-like folk, with little concept of honour or comradeship. They were fickle, I’d always found, and not trustworthy, but there was no point blaming them for their nature. We had survived, and were in Brinmar at last, and being angry wouldn’t help.

  Xando and I shared the towrope, slowly hauling the barge up the canal, while Zak rested and allowed his arm to heal fully. Berendort and Tren sat either side of him, Berendort chattering away, Tren silent, watching the two men with big eyes.

  I eyed Xando as we walked. He was silent, his mouth set in a thin line. I’d hurt him, I knew that.

  “Look… I’m sorry I shouted at you,” I said. “I was just… it was a close thing, that’s all, and I was frightened. Thank you for… for throwing stones at them.”

  He beamed at me. “I hope it helped, a little.”

  Now that we were inside the walls, and not in fear for our lives, I became aware of the peculiar atmosphere around me, like nowhere else I’d ever been. The three minds nearby, Zak, Tren and Berendort, were in the background, with no intrusive spikes of emotion. But the flickers—

  That was it. My own flickers were happy about the proximity of other flickers, but there was something else. I tried to focus my mind, to detect what was affecting them. I became aware of two separate groupings. Both registered in my consciousness in the way a swarm of bees might intrude – like a low level mental buzz. But one was positive, full of contentment, and the other – that was very different.

  I turned to Berendort. “Why are there so many angry flickers here?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You can detect that?” His eyes flew to Xando. “She is very sensitive. How many has she attached?”

  “Eight,” Xando said.

  “Eight! And she is untrained? Curious. But keep towing, strange lady. We would like to be home before dark.” Then he laughed at his own wit, for we were well into brightmoon, and it would be light almost until midnight.

  It was a surprisingly long way to the heart of Brinmar. The circular walls enclosed an area more than a mark across, and unlike the banks of the canal outside, every scrap of land was under cultivation. There were pastures and barns, fields of well-grown crops and glasshouses for more tender varieties. The canal itself was lined with fruit trees. The throwers were largely self-sufficient, it seemed.

  The canal veered off to the west, and there, tucked almost under the wall, was a small township, with an array of plain, stone-built houses, solid and square and practical. Here were the people, a hive of lively minds, and here too were the contented flickers, tucked happily into their throwers’ pockets.

  But away to the east, almost at the furthest point of the circle, was a tower of dark stone, and from there emanated all the anger I’d detected. I knew what it must be – unattached flickers, brought here for throwers to choose from. But I pitied them, tricked out of their homes and locked away in their glass jars. It was no wonder they were angry.

  No one was waiting for us when we reached the town’s wharf. Zak deftly tied up the barge, and by the time he was finished, Berendort and Tren had disappeared. Zak shrugged, but I found it bizarre behaviour. It was as if the world outside the walls had no meaning for these people; not just unimportant to them, but not even real. We had come through fire and battle to be here, and no one seemed the slightest bit interested.

  “I’ll take you to Errin,” Zak said. “She’s in charge here. She’ll decide what to do with you.”

  “Offer us food, drink and a warm welcome, I trust,” I said.

  He looked at me sideways, saying nothing, but there was that warm bubble of amusement in him. He was seductively easy to like.

  The town was very regular, all straight lines and right angles. The houses were square, the streets were paved with square slabs, the blocks were symmetrical – five houses to each side, all joined together in dispiriting rows, each house interchangeable with every other, apart from an occasional burst of colour on the shutters or doors. It was not encouraging. There was no beauty, no elegance or lightness, no decoration, no quirky little back streets or unexpected open spaces, no fountains. The place felt dead.

  It seemed a long way to Errin’s house or office, and Xando was beginning to flag. We’d been awake all night, then we’d had to sit immobile in a corner of the hut all day, followed by a battle which we’d barely survived. We’d had little to eat or drink for hours. All I really wanted was a hot bath, a bowl of nourishing soup and a comfortable bed. Any two of those would have been acceptable. Even one – or any glimmering of hospitality, in fact – would have been better than trudging through empty streets to who knew what end. From time to time, I caught whiffs of smoke imbued with meaty aromas, or heard bursts of laughter or music in the distance. But not for us, seemingly.

  Zak led us to a square building exactly like all the others, except for some tubs of bright yellow flowers outside the door. He knocked twice and waited. Nothing happened. He knocked again.

  “Oh, by the One!” I muttered, and pushed open the door. The room was surprisingly pretty, the furnishings made of a light northern wood carved with flowers, with floral cushions.

  “I really don’t think…” Zak whispered to me.

  “Hello!” I yelled. “Anyone home?”

  “We shouldn’t be in here,” Zak said. “Let’s wait outside.” His tone was urgent, but inside he was greatly entertained.

  Before I could answer, an inner door flew open and a tiny woman stormed out, wearing a flimsy robe of Pastruckian silk, if I’m any judge. A lady of very expensive tastes. Her face was pinker than the robe. “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

  The blast of anger nearly knocked me off my feet. I reached for Xando, and grabbed his hand. Blessed silence. Thank the One for his power to block all the emotions. Except his own. Poor boy, he was petrified, tugging me towards the door.

  “Are you Errin?”

  “Get out of my house! Zakkarvyn, take her to the records room, for fuck’s sake. Make sure she stays there. I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said coldly.


  “I beg your pardon?”

  “As you should. If I’d known you were so ill-mannered, I’d never have bothered coming here. We’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to get to this place, only because Xando assured me it was the proper thing to do, and you would help me. We’ve walked through the Sky Mountains, escaped the soldiers of Caxangur, disguised ourselves as bargers, and three of us fought off an entire troop of Hrandish warriors who very nearly killed us. Apart from Zak, not one of your people has been the least bit of use to us. We’re tired and hungry and extremely unimpressed by your discourtesy to guests. So no, we will not wait on your convenience, Mistress.”

  She thrust out her chest like a bird fluffing up its feathers. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Forcing your way in here, forcing us to accept you as a thrower, forcing—”

  “Demons, you think I wanted this? You are absolutely wrong. I’m not here through any choice of mine. But if you don’t want me here, then fine. I never wanted to be a thrower, and I’ll be more than happy to leave. The Hrandish are a great deal friendlier than you are.”

  I let go of Xando, and Errin’s anger hit me all over again, although muted now by puzzlement. I shrugged out of my thrower’s coat and dumped it on the floor, then turned and made for the door.

  “No!” They all shouted in unison.

  “You can’t do that,” Errin gasped, all the anger washed away by shock. Even Zak’s amusement had fled.

  “Just watch me.” I wrenched the door open.

  “No, come back. Of course you mustn’t leave. But… if you didn’t want to be a thrower, why the fuck did you attach a flicker?”

  “It was not intentional!” Xando jumped in. “The first one – I had already attached him, but then he chose Allandra. He chose her! He just leapt at her. It was not her fault.”

  Errin’s anger was gone. All I read from her now was bewilderment. “How extraordinary. Well. And you managed to get past the savages outside the walls. Interesting.”

  “No thanks to you!”

  “We could do nothing to help, you know.”

  I snorted in derision. “What use are all these throwers if they can’t tackle a few Hrandish warriors?”