Tilting her head, the pixie wrinkled her nose prettily in thought.
“How about Wilbert?” The girl felt a little twinkle of success. “Yeah, I’m willing to bet you were a Wilbert.”
Below her, the big man clenched his teeth. “I told you, I am the Justicar.”
“Yeah, right.” The faerie sat up and made a nice, poised motion with her hands. “The Justicar is not a name. Your mother did not lay her firstborn in her arms and say, ‘Oh look! It’s little the Justicar.’” The girl speared one green eye in a sly look at the man. “The Justicar is what a fighter calls himself when he thinks that all the other fighters have bigger weapons.”
The faerie felt her ride stiffen his neck muscles. She coiled a little lower, her wings fanning at his ears. “Tell me!”
“No!”
“Go on! What could it hurt?” Tickling his skull with a wisp of her own hair, Escalla wheedled mercilessly on and on. “Be your best friend! Give you a sterling! Walk your dog!”
Very clearly, her powers of persuasion were going to need a lot of rethinking. Annoyed by her failures, Escalla irritably flicked her wings. “Hey, pooch! Is he always this deeply in character?”
From below her bottom, Cinders’ thoughts drifted upward with a grin. Yup.
Sighing in frustration, Escalla slumped across the man’s head and irritably watched the world roll by.
“I’m bored!” The girl lounged back to stare at the sky. “Bored, bored, bored!”
“Shut up!” The Justicar tramped tirelessly on. “Try going to sleep.”
“Then I’ll be asleep and bored!” Escalla gave a groan. “Talk to me you shaven-headed git! Just tell me your damned name!”
As they drew nearer to the city, more and more people began to appear. It suddenly seemed that this portion of the Flanaess was not so depopulated after all. There were now farmers standing in the fields and merchants marching along the roads. Ignoring the stares from a passing cartload of peasants, Escalla rummaged in the top of the Justicar’s backpack and pulled out her brand new set of clothes.
At a wayside stop the night before, Escalla had made a windfall. She had swiped a length of buttersoft chlamys leather from a jewel merchant. After being forced to return the jewels, she had still contrived to make the piece of hide her own. Sitting happily behind the Justicar’s neck, she had stitched and cut and sewed all morning, hoping that he would notice the activity. The man remained silent for three solid hours—hours enlivened by the chatter of the faerie at his back. Escalla put a last few finishing touches upon her handiwork, cast aside her stained old woollen clothes, and happily dressed herself in real finery.
The chlamys felt softer than a lover’s tongue. Escalla drew long leggings up her thighs, paused for a moment to admire herself in a mirror image spell, then bent over to check the fit of her new costume and smack her own behind.
“Oooh, there are hearts breaking in the enchanted forest tonight!”
Even more pleased with herself than usual, Escalla whirred up into the air and hovered ahead of the marching Justicar. She struck a lithe, stretching pose in midair.
“Ta-daah! Real clothes! So how do I look?”
The girl wore long fingerless gloves that reached to her upper arms. Long leggings and a tiny corselet that would have gotten her arrested if she were three feet taller completed her attire. The faerie made a pirouette in midair, quite pleased with the fact that the velvety leathers fit her body like a second skin.
“So? Do you like it?”
The Justicar had stopped walking. He examined Escalla, wrinkled his nose, and then went back to his march.
“You look like an elven trollop.”
“These are adventure clothes.” Somewhat miffed, Escalla flew beside the man and threw him a haughty sideways glance. “Adventurers are supposed to be all toned and wear tight leather.”
“So do trollops.” The Justicar took a closer look at the expanses of exposed pixie-skin. “Did the fact that winter is coming sink into your mind?”
“Hey, I can accessorize!” Escalla flipped up Cinders’ long tail and wound it about her like a stole. “Sexiest thing you ever saw. Am I right?”
Her only answer from the man came as sigh of annoyance. He tried to ignore her and kept tramping along the road.
“We’re getting near the city now. Turn invisible and stop making a spectacle of yourself.”
The faerie let Cinders’ tail drop out of her hands. Unamused, she hovered in midair and folded up her arms.
“So I’m guessing you’re a really specialized ranger, right? Did they not go much for merriment and social interaction at ranger school?”
“We are about to enter the city.” The Justicar deliberately ignored the faerie flying at his side. “The last thing we want our enemy to do is to discover the whereabouts of their favorite pixie.”
Escalla gave the man a frosty toss of her hair.
“Hey, I’m a faerie, remember? Not a pixie, thank you very much.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A faerie is a pixie who’s learned discipline and ambition.” Escalla lifted up her chin, her eyes slitted in pride. “Pixies are like sparrows, but faeries… ?” The girl looked at one of her slim, perfectly milk-white arms and gave a satisfied sigh. “Faeries are like falcons.”
The Justicar grabbed the girl and tucked her out of sight. “Well why don’t you falcon-well shut up!”
“Hey! No one touches the faerie!” Escalla jerked out of the human’s grasp and sat herself back down atop his backpack. “You are such an annoying twerp!”
“I’m cut deep by that one.” The Justicar had always valued a life of introspection and blessed quiet. Between teamsters and faeries, he seemed condemned to have his ears battered by brainless natterings. “For the last time: Get out of sight, keep your ears open, and shut up.”
Escalla slyly touched the corner of her mouth with her tongue, then silkily slid closer.
“All right, here’s the deal. Half an hour of golden silence—at a time of your choosing—if you tell me what your real name is.”
“What?”
“Cross my heart!” The faerie sat up and crisscrossed her breasts with a fingertip. “You can store it up in credit to use bits of it at need. Just tell Escalla your name. Come on, you can do it!”
The ranger stood in the road and seethed. He flexed his fists and imagined a hundred thousand dire fates for the scrawny little faerie on his back.
“I hate pixies!”
“Come on! Tell the faerie your name!”
The ranger mumbled something inaudible under his breath and began to move on. Sparking instantly in interest, Escalla put a hand to one of her long pointed ears and leaned in closer.
“What was that? Hmm?”
“Evelyn!” Embarrassed, the Justicar stamped one foot in childish annoyance. “There, all right. Are you happy? I was raised by villagers who happened to like the name.”
Sensing a nerve laid bare, Escalla opened her hands in hasty protest. “Hey, I never said a word! Evelyn is…” The faerie tried to search for something sufficient to say while desperately trying to keep a straight face. “It’s a wonderful name! Evelyn… Good, fast, powerful. I mean, I just hear that and I say, ‘Tough-guy ranger’!”
“Shut up!”
“Hey, you’re the boss… Evelyn.”
Basking happily in the sun, Cinders gave a wheezing sound of glee. Evelyn! Funny!
Growling, the Justicar marched his way down the road toward the city.
His original name had been a gift from villagers who were now withered dust and bones. In the aftermath of war, the Justicar had created a new identity, a purpose that defined him, a role to be followed with unforgiving intensity. He had labored for years to purify the world of the unworthy, the parasites who slaughtered innocents for their own monetary gain. “The Justicar” embodied everything he had achieved, everything he wanted to be.
“Don’t call me Evelyn!”
“Hey
!” The pixie touched her heart. “Never slip my lips again. Our secret, you and me.” The girl relaxed across the top of his skull. “So, Ev, what’s our plans in the city?”
“And don’t call me Ev!”
“How about Jus?” The girl flew on her back in front of the human with her hands pillowing her head. “Come on! We’re partners, right? I can’t go around calling you the Justicar!”
The Justicar was too tired with the whole subject to fight it any longer.
The faerie whirred around and settled cross-legged upon his shaven head. “So, Jus, what do we do in the city? How do we find this guy?”
The man weighed the badger skin hanging from his belt. The results were not comforting.
“It had better only take a few nights. I now have precisely twelve nobles left.”
Escalla made an airy wave. “No problem. We can get more.”
“No thieving!”
The girl pantomimed total innocence as though the thought had never crossed her mind. Glaring, the ranger halted at a hummock by the road. He rummaged in his backpack, inadvertently tickling Cinders.
Preening herself, Escalla hovered just above a thistle bloom. “So, bristle-boy! How do we track this sorcerer down? Even if I can recognize him, we still have to find him.”
“We can deduce a lot about him from what we already know. Someone is arranging to ambush vital supplies heading to the border colonies. Whoever it is, he’s not highly placed enough to simply find out the caravan routes at the court or from the military, so we won’t have to go penetrating high society.”
“Oh good. I was wanting to broach a few thoughts on changing your personal dress habits.” Escalla caught a stinging glare from the Justicar and held up her hands. “Fine! Right, hell hound skin, shaven head, skull sword. The look’s definitely you.”
The Justicar continued his lecture. “He’s trying to keep the north border empty of settlements. North is desolate land. North is also the direction of Iuz, so we’re probably looking for a spy from Iuz, someone who can summon those abyssal bats. He therefore either is a sorcerer or has one readily at hand. Sorcerers have a need to purchase some pretty strange supplies. We’ll start asking at shops that cater to magic-users.”
Escalla made a face. “And if he brought his own stuff along with him?”
“We’ll cruise the taverns for a while and ask questions.” The Justicar felt a glow of inner fire as he anticipated the hunt. This was what he did best, and at the end of it the world would be just a little better. “We see if anyone new has set up in town—anyone with money. Do you know what this person looked like?”
“Um, yeah.” Escalla blinked. “Tallish, kinda short; fattish, kinda thin; bald with long red hair; a big hatchet nose; robes with lots of charms hanging from it…” The girl creased her brows in thought. “Oh! And he had his face painted black on one side, white on the other!”
Her partner stared at her with a heavy-lidded gaze. “For future reference, the face makeup is probably the most important point of reference.”
“You think so? Oh, sure!” The girl gave a shrug. “Whatever.”
Annoyed, the ranger shook his head and let the subject drop. “Face painting. It’s either a cult, a loony, or a damned good disguise.” Working with practiced efficiency, the man hung an old horse blanket about himself—one of the few treasures he had bought along the road—and hid the hilt of his sword. “Nothing for it. We go dig for information. You keep invisible, and we’ll see what we both hear.”
“Sure. Sounds like a plan!” There was a brief pop, and Escalla winked out of view. “I can only keep it up for half an hour, though. It gets tiring, and too much of it gives me dandruff!”
“So make a nest in the backpack for when you need to rest.”
“Hoopy!” Invisible wings whirred. “Hey, Cinders! You and me get to be cozy!”
Cozy…
The trio traveled down a muddy road. They were soon joined by farmers, traders, and weary militia men. Walking along beside a reeking wagon load of pickled cabbage, the Justicar felt pixie wings tickle at his ears.
“Hey, Jus!”
“Yes?”
“Can we get an inn room with a hot bath?”
The ranger rattled his purse. “Using just exactly what to pay for it?”
“I’m working on it!” The girl seemed immensely cheerful for someone on a deathlist. “No thieving! We just have to apply our talents to the problem at hand.”
The concerns of money were a distraction from the work. Frowning, the Justicar thought about it and wearily shook his head. “We can live rough. The job is all that matters.” He gripped his black sword. “Justice must be done.”
Escalla’s voice became silkily sly. She gave sweet reason a honeyed tongue.
“Hey, you’re a law enforcer. You need to be able to collect your thoughts, yeah?” Invisible little wings purred. “How can you investigate if there’s nowhere to take a load off your feet after a hard days grind?”
“We’ll see.”
The road up ahead had become blocked with traffic outside the city gates. Trigol’s city guards flanked the gatehouse, and the Justicar looked grim as he heard the distant jingling of coin.
The gate guards were bored-looking men in mail armor carrying halberds or bows. Sure enough, the traffic jam was caused by these individuals extracting a fee from every person seeking to enter the city. The Justicar sighed, impatiently waited his turn, and then marched forward to hear the bad news.
A guard proffered his open palm in the time-honored sign. “Pass chip?”
The Justicar glowered. “What?”
“No pass chip? That’s one gold noble entry fee.” The bored guard snapped his fingers. “Keep it moving.”
One whole noble! The Justicar seemed to grow three inches in height as he crackled with outrage.
“You want how much?”
“Militia tax.” The guard wore a silk shirt beneath his armor—apparently levied as a tax from a traveller. “Unless you join the militia or ship in supplies, you pay to pass the gates.”
About to argue, the Justicar suddenly found something prodding into his hand. He open his palm and found a gold piece gleaming in the sun.
The guard took it and threw the coin into a collection barrel beside the gate. “Have a nice stay.”
Looming over the guard, the Justicar seethed for a moment and then went on his way.
As he stalked away, Escalla’s voice lilted behind him through the air. “Bye guys!”
Bye.
Guards jerked about in suspicion, but saw nothing except the gleam of fangs and eyes inside the Justicar’s backpack. Frowning, the men turned away and went back to the daily business of extortion.
Walking down a wide, cobbled street hung with a hundred different wooden shop signs, the Justicar simmered with indignation.
“I was going to bring them to heel. They’re charging ten times the rate they’ve been told to and are keeping the excess for themselves.”
“It’s no problem!” Escalla’s invisible bottom settled upon the ranger’s head. “Why worry?”
“Exploitation of the weak must be punished.” The Justicar’s voice boomed like the pronouncement of doom. “And we needed the money.”
“Money? You still have twelve nobles. You’re no worse off than before.”
Halting, the man touched his purse. He flicked his eyes to stare at the blank air behind him. “You stole!”
“I took it from the guard, so it wasn’t thieving. It was a redistribution of misdirected assets.”
The Justicar gave a bristling growl. “It’s still stealing.”
“No, no! It’s anti-stealing!” Escalla could twist logic with the best of them. “Think of it as un-money.”
“What?”
The faerie hovered invisibly in midair. “Well, is there a difference between normal goods and stolen goods?”
“Of course there is!”
“And you yourself would never use stolen goods—s
o that means there’s a taint, right?” The girl drove home her logic point by point. “So, if stolen goods are different from unstolen goods, then stolen-ness is a quality added to normal items to mark them as stolen. Am I right? In this case, the coin was already stolen, so I myself didn’t transfer any quality of stolen-ness onto it.”
Breathing slow and hard, the Justicar sensed the distinct presence of a fallacy. “It’s still stolen property.”
“How about this one? A mathematical proof.” Escalla drummed a little tattoo onto the Justicar’s skull. “Look, theft is a negative thing. Now a minus and a minus is a positive, right? Therefore, two wrongs must make a right. I just did a good thing, and you should therefore congratulate me.”
The Justicar drew a long, slow breath. “I’m letting it pass just this once because you only took one coin. Don’t do it again.”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever!”
Clamped inside Cinders’ gleaming teeth were three more coins. Escalla’s invisible fingers carefully closed the dog’s mouth to hide her ill-gotten gain from view.
“You all right, pooch?”
All right.
The trio stood in a street thronged with crowds intent on getting indoors before the autumn evening brought the cold. Here in the outer regions, refugees had made rough shelters leaning against the city wall. Their rags were a stark contrast to the bright clothes of the merchants who flowed from the gateway to the city marketplace. With the fall of the Duchy of Tenh to Iuz during the wars, thousands of refugees had come flooding into Trigol. The poor now sheltered in makeshift shantytowns while the wealthy purchased property, patronized their imported temples, and started riots in the streets.
Even on a quiet evening, the city was a strange and marvelous thing. Crowds hurried with heads down, dispersing into the light and warmth of countless houses. Standing with his head craned back to see the rooftops and the painted wooden shop signs, the Justicar took a moment to simply enjoy the view. Excited at reaching a big city at last, Escalla made a brisk flitter-flutter of her wings. Cinders gave a happy wag of his tail.
White Plume Mountain Page 7
