“Six in the alley. There are also two on the roof with crossbows.”
Hunor nodded. He could sense the mage preparing a defence and considering all the various escape options. Hunor prayed Jem wasn’t planning a fizzy wall; his stomach was griping enough after the food in the Rose Tavern.
The lean man crossed the street and stood before the pair. He was remarkably ugly. His lumpy face was crisscrossed with scar tissue. One eye was glass and clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a while.
“A good Leafstide to you both. My master was wondering if you’d be gracious enough to give him twenty minutes of your time?”
Certain that both crossbows were trained on his head Hunor produced his most charming grin.
“Kind yeoman of mighty Kir, you catch us at a slight disadvantage. I am afraid as mere traders and strangers in this ancient city we can’t think who would want to waste their valuable time with our exceptionally dull company.”
The lean man gave a lopsided leer, his mouth evidently restricted by his scars.
“Why Guildmaster Linkon invites you and he’s not a man who is readily refused, good trader.”
Jem sighed as he saw Hunor’s eyes twinkle.
***
The guild house of the West Avenue thieves had once been a great library. Its robust walls were designed to convey an air of tranquillity, felt in the hey day of the Azaguntan Cabal to facilitate learning. Those aspirations were now as dusty and decayed as the nation that had believed in them and the many centuries since had seen a new knowledge come to the Azaguntans—that of crime. And as the ethos of a nation had evolved so the western library had twisted and changed. Partition walls, wooden screens, newer bricks and mortar had divided the long chambers into a warren of rooms and passages, some overt and some secret. Different spans of aging plaster—yellowed by the continued haze of tobacco smoke—covered the walls patchily like the skin of some leprous ghoul.
Hunor’s distaste at the place was clearly magnified a thousand-fold in his particular companion. Jem’s nose was curling to the point of becoming a snout and his moustache twitched like a nervous rabbit.
Their guide, the scarred man from Gilder Road, was leading them through the passages. They passed several rooms where groups of burly men sat playing Kirit’s Eye. All were armed and most rooms had racks of crossbows, oiled and ready. Jem took it all in as he walked behind Hunor, logging all their positions should the need arise to flee.
They paused at the base of a staircase whilst the scarred man talked to two thugs. Jem felt a tingle in his head and glanced to the left.
In the shadows of the staircase was a man, perhaps in his late thirties, with dirty blond hair. He was dressed in an untidy white shirt and leather pants and was muttering something to himself. Jem sensed the magic in the air around him; he was another Wild-mage.
Hunor nudged Jem. The scarred man had begun to ascend the stairs and the two thugs stared at the pair. Hunor slipped past them with a wink, followed by Jem.
The door at the top of the stairs was heavy oak and reinforced with iron bands. Another two ruffians, clearly with a hint of goblin in them, stood guard. They parted to allow the trio through.
***
Hunor and Jem entered an expansive chamber. The room was perhaps thirty feet wide by forty feet deep. A fire in the far wall sent dancing shadows across the plushly decorated walls. The majority of the floor space was occupied by a bewildering array of furniture: chairs, tables and cupboards, all of the finest craftsmanship. The plaster in here was in much better condition than the patches in the rooms below and several grand paintings were hung on the walls, dating from the Eerian Empire.
The scarred man weaved around the chairs and short tables and came to a halt before a grand desk. On the far side sat a short solid man.
“Jem, Hunor! Boys! Where’ve you ass-monkeys been hiding these last few years? Hey, how long’s it been now?” the small man asked.
Jem nodded curtly whilst Hunor held his hands out in a gesture of mock surprise. “Linkon Arikson. How can a visit to Sogox’s Barnacle be complete without a drink with you?”
Linkon laughed then winced in pain. He was a small yet muscular man with a nose that had been broken so many times it had come to resemble a small parsnip. This comical appearance fooled very few in Kir. His eyes were dark and told of death. One did not rise to Guildmaster by any other way than a close allegiance with murder. His tattooed hand was pressing a pig’s bladder against his jaw.
“Scarseye, go and scram will you. Your face makes the milk curdle. Go steal me some money or something, huh?” Linkon said to their companion.
Scarseye glowered at Linkon then left, the door closing heavily behind him.
“Cold, that one Hunor, stone cold,” Linkon said. “No honour amongst these younger thieves, present company being excepted. Would kill your mother, eat your kids and do your dog if you crossed him.”
Jem sat in an opulent armchair and straightened his clothes. His gaze flitted through the antique furnishings. He reached to a small table next to his seat and rearranged four candlesticks to form a precise line.
Hunor remained standing and poured a glass of wine from a golden jug on the desk, idly pushing aside some parchments and scrolls.
“Why the bladder, Linkon?”
“Damn tooth rot again, Hunor. Tried everything. This one’s from the Guild of Healers, some old Midlundian cure. There’s hags blood, yarkel eyes and griffon feather inside it or something. I’d just blown twenty silver on something that smelt like fish crap from the apothecary as well.”
“The whole town smells of fish waste,” Jem said.
“So how come you Wild-mages can’t do any better than the quacks? My own boy downstairs can blow a hole in a garrison but can’t even sort my tooth out.”
Jem sighed and began to explain in an air of irritation. “There are few magic disciplines that can produce healing, Mr Arikson. Really it’s the forte of Dark-mages, altering flesh and blood. I also seem to recall that Galvorian monks can use their arts to mend bones and treat wounds.”
“Ingor’s nuts! I’d not let one of those potato-heads near my killer smile. Anyways it’s been too long boys. Hear you monkeys have been winding up Igrid down south?”
Hunor sipped his wine, fixing his eyes on Linkon.
“Ah come on, Linkon, you know Igrid. He’s a jester. It was all some misunderstanding about his niece and an Aquatonian necklace. It’ll come good. We just fancied a change of scene—thought we’d nip up to the seaside and try those eels that the Barnacle is so famous for. Did I tell you the story about me, Jem and the Molten Eel of Pyrios?”
Linkon shook his head to indicate his interest in one of Hunor’s stories was at best miniscule. A lull descended on the room, which was soon broken by the short Guildmaster.
“Any how let’s get to business before we all drop our trousers and start fencing, huh? I’ll admit I’m pleased you boys are in my town. No really. I’ve a big job that needs your…ah, combined talents.”
Hunor sat next to Jem, who smoothed his moustache.
“A concerned party has contracted me to locate a valued item matching a very particular description. Simple enough? Turns out Engin’s dice aren’t rolling too well this autumn. I’ve sent three crews out for three separate items that match the description already and I’ve just got wind of another.”
“Why do you need our, as you put it, combined talents, Mr Arikson?” Jem asked.
“I’m sure the valuable in question will be tucked away with some magic wards around it. Credit where it’s due, you boys are good at this sort of thing. It’ll be worth your interest,” Linkon said, pressing the pig’s bladder tight on his jaw.
Hunor and Jem exchanged a look.
“First, who’s the job for? Second where is it?” Hunor asked.
Hunor saw Linkon’s eyes flicker almost imperceptibly at a scroll on his vast desk. The Guildmaster smiled with some effort, rearranging the pig’s bladder poultice. His voice was cooler and Hunor wo
rried for a moment he had gone too far.
“First of all you don’t need to know who’s behind the money. That’s the way I work boys you remember that? Second of all, the job’s in Eeria. Coonor, to be specific.”
Hunor groaned. Coonor: the City of the Mists. What was it about mists today? It was the only place in mainland Nurolia that was colder than where they were now.
Jem sat forward. “Coonor! The cleanest city outside of Goldoria! Please continue, Mr Arikson, please continue.”
It was Hunor’s turn to sigh.
Chapter 3 The Carnival
Leafstide 1920
“Do you think there’s something wrong with her?”
It was Abila’s voice, saturated with concern. Emelia knew that should mean something to her but she couldn’t seem to generate the energy to be bothered.
Her body was weighed down by misery. Each time she tried to rise from her bed it dragged her back like an undertow in a sea of gloom. There were no tears left in her, she felt wrung out and barren. A void was within her hollow chest, a space where a young bright girl used to be.
“I don’t think what Sandila’s got is catching,” Annre said.
“Come on, Emelia, before Mother gets here.”
Mother? She is no mother to me, thought Emelia. Who would be a mother to such a weak worthless vassal as I? She needed to get up but her muscles refused. By Torik, she was tired, weary to the marrow. She was fatigued yet couldn’t sleep.
“Get up now, girl,” Mother Gresham said.
Emelia stared at the stone of the wall. I feel like the dead rock of this prison.
A bucket of ice cold water soaked Emelia. She sprang from the bed with a scream. Gresham grabbed her hair and dragged her across the floor.
“Melancholia is for the rich, Emelia. Remember that. Now get to your chores or I’ll cane you into a better frame of mind.”
Emelia stumbled towards the warmth of the kitchen, stifling a sob.
***
The wind that drove over the Cloudtip Mountains from the Plains of Meltor often marked the decline of autumn. It chilled like none other, infiltrating any gap in the yarkel hair cloaks that the servants had as their only protection.
Emelia and Abila awaited the emergence of Mother Gresham and Sandila into the cobbled square that was located in front of the Keep and its gatehouse. The ubiquitous mists had cleared rapidly that morning with the wind.
Although their origins in the frigid northern islands had conferred them some degree of resilience to the cold the two girls still stomped and slapped themselves, trying to reclaim some of the lost warmth of the kitchens.
Emelia’s attention was fixed on the upper city’s walls. They ran from either side of the Keep flush with the edge of the plateau on which the city sat.
“It makes you wonder what sort of threat made them build walls that high around a city half way up a mountain,” Emelia said.
“Are you going to be dreamy all day?” Abila asked. “I suppose it’s better than the mood you have been in this last week.”
“Oh, you noticed! Well you’d be in a mood too if you found out you were going to live with the Air-mages as an object of curiosity.”
“They might turn you into a frog and then you could hop away.”
Emelia glared at her friend. “I just feel so trapped in this place, with its high walls and its sombre stones. It’s like we’re in a giant rock pool.”
“That’s a curious phrase. I’ve heard you say it before. Where’s it from?”
Emelia sat back against the edge of a rickshaw. Tears pricked her eyes.
“Do you remember much before you came here? Much about your family?”
Abila shook her head. “I was only five, I think. My mother died in childbirth and my father, well he was a sailor and you know how they drink. When he was offered the money for my servitude I’m certain he leapt at the chance. I’ve probably a better life here.”
“Well I’m not sure I can say the same. Before you tell me off, it’s not the melancholia. I’ve being thinking about it for a while.
“I was at the markets with Mother about three months ago and whilst she was arguing with a vendor about some cabbage I smelt this old man’s pipe smoke. It was sweet, like the steam from cook’s puddings.
“Well then I got a sudden feeling that I’d smelt it before and into my head popped this image, this scene, like a dream but whilst I was awake.”
Abila sat besides Emelia, hugging herself for warmth.
“What was it an image of?”
“It was on an island, before the famine. I was on a beach. No, that’s not strictly true. I was atop some rock pools next to the beach. With me there was another girl and I think it was perhaps my sister. She wore a shell pendant just like mine.”
Emelia pulled loose the pendant and Abila nodded.
“Down on the sands there were two adults, a man and a woman, and they were repairing a net. I’d found a large crab. It was a real beauty! It had speckled brown on its shell, as if it couldn’t decide what colour to be when it had been born. Every time I tried to lift up this crab from its rock pool it scuttled back into the water. My sister was laughing but I kept trying to tease it out. Each time it broke free and returned to the pool.”
Abila rested her head on Emelia’s shoulder as she continued.
“Well even I got bored of this game and I was really sore from the wind, salt and sun. So my sister and I came down the rocks. I can still feel the rough surface scraping our bare feet. The man, and I think it was perhaps my father, was sat with my mother by a small boat.
“I can recall my mother was young and pretty, and I wonder if it was my father’s second wife. I think his first wife had died and the son by that union had left the island years before. My mother had borne my sister and me.”
“I can understand the rock pool bit now. What’s the pipe smoke got to do with it?”
“Give me a minute! Well I went to sit by my father. I can remember his arms—they were knotted with muscle like the ropes he used in his fishing boat. His eyes were a deep kind blue. He smoked a long wooden pipe. It had been that smell, that rich scent of pipe weed which stayed with me.
“So I asked him why the crab kept scuttling away when I just wanted to bring it down and show it where I lived. He laughed and said to me, ‘That is all it knows. The pool is its world and it cannot see beyond that.’ He said that I was different, that my eyes would see beyond wherever I stood but, as far as I could see at any time there’d still be more. He…he said Asha had given me eyes from the stars.”
Tears rolled down Emelia’s cheeks, stinging in the bitter wind. Her friend smiled and touched her arm.
“That’s a lovely memory to treasure. But this is our life now. Here, the Keep, in servitude. You’ll get ill if you carry on dreaming of the Islands.”
“Then sick I shall have to be. When does a memory become a dream? It’s as hard to grasp as that pipe smoke. But I’ll dream of a better life every day and come my twenty first year I shall make it back to the Islands…I swear.”
The slave girl looked concerned and uncomfortable. Over her shoulder Emelia saw the huge silhouette of Mother Gresham waddling out of the keep with Sandila. She wiped the tears away.
“Back to where?” Abila asked. “There are a thousand islands, Emelia—you’ll never get back to your own. You’d be far better staying on in service…if not with the Ebon-Farrs or the Air-mages then with some other fine household.”
“There are records…they keep records, I can remember them saying.”
“Oh come on, Emelia,” Abila said, shaking her head. “Perhaps a record of the transaction or the contract, so they can wave it around and sell it on. But the specific little island you come from? The Corinthians get lost in the Islands when they sail there and they’ve laid claim to them for hundreds of years. You’d be much happier if you just accept your life and stop these silly dreams.”
Gresham stomped past the girls and tossed two large cloth
bags to them, each containing a long list of provisions. Emelia sighed—evidently there was going to be little room on the rickshaw for carrying the purchases from the lower city.
“So what do you think is wrong with Sandila?” Abila asked in a low voice.
“Well she’s been sick every day for a fortnight,” Emelia said. “According to the others ‘Turnip worm’ is the favourite, followed closely by ‘Housemaid’s grype.’ I also heard Gedre whispering she thought it is a curse from Torik brought on by Sandila kissing too many boys in the Keep.”
Abila laughed, her eyes wide.
“Well that earned her a thump around her ear from Annre. So I’d say ‘worms’ has returned as the favourite. Mind you, I think that there were a few praying with extra vigour that night.”
The broad figure of Torm followed the pair out of the Keep. Abila saw the lad and nudged Emelia.
“Look, Emelia, your sweetheart’s coming too.”
Emelia blushed and poked Abila back. She had seen Torm only once since Uthor’s advance and he had avoided her gaze.
“Hello Torm. Is the jackal letting you out today?” Abila asked, glancing side ways at Emelia.
“Oh, hullo Abila, hullo Emelia. Freezing isn’t it?”
“You haven’t felt cold until you’ve lived through a Coonorian winter, Torm,” Emelia said. “Why are you coming down to the lower city with us?”
“Master Uthor had his new doublet repaired at Herstin and Jotts but there was a problem with it. He needs it tonight for some outing in the city and wants me to take it there and then back.”
“All that way for a bit of gold trim?” Emelia asked.
“Ah well it gets me out from the Keep and I can see the lower city on the way down, in case I get errands in future.”
“Emelia can show you some interesting bits,” Abila said.
Emelia shot Abila a deathly glance. “You alright, Torm? You knocked your face?”
Torm covered his bruised cheek and looked down.
“Err, not exactly.”
Dreams of Darkness Rising Page 5
