Castle of Deception bt-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  The others were riding on. The bardling urged his horse after them. trying to ignore Tich’ki’s mocking, “Boy acts like he’s never seen a city before.”

  Well, all right, maybe he hadn’t! What of it?

  With an indignant sniff, Kevin straightened in the saddle, doing his best to pretend there was nothing at all amazing about those thick stone walls towering over them as they approached, nothing at all amazing about the mass of buildings he glimpsed through the open gates.

  But for all his attempts at keeping calm, the bardling’s heart had begun pounding wildly.

  Westerin. Westerin!

  Why, the very name rang with adventure!

  Chapter IX

  Despite Eliathanis’ worries, they had no trouble at an getting into Westerin. In fact, the city guards hardly glanced their way, waving the party inside with bored indifference.

  Kevin struggled to copy that indifference. But how could he possibly keep from gawking? The street up which they were riding was wide enough to hold them easily even if they had been riding abreast And it was paved with cobblestones! Only the innkeeper of the Blue Swan back in Bracklin had been able to afford those expensive things.

  And how could Kevin not stare at all the buildings? He’d never seen so many in one place. He’d never dreamed so many could exist! They seemed to have been set out helter-skelter, as though each owner had put his house wherever he wanted it, without worrying about how the whole thing was going to look. The casual jumble of buildings created a maze of smaller streets branching out in all directions.

  Kevin shook his head in confusion. Not only was there no pattern to the way the buildings were laid out, no two houses looked alike. Some of those he glimpsed were small, low to the ground, looking somehow meek amid all the bustle, of the homey, wattle-and-daub sort familiar to him from Bracklin, even if their roofs here were of red tile rather than thatch. Other houses were eccentrically painted half-timbered buildings, their upper stories leaning drunkenly together over their narrow streets, only wooden props keeping them apart. Kevin gave up trying to be aloof and stared openly when he saw a row of out and out mansions of beautifully worked stone, some of them, amazingly, three or four stories high.

  And the people! There must be thousands here inside the encircling city walls, all of them speaking a jumble of languages. Their tunics and gowns and cloaks were a dazzling confusion of colors: red, blue, gold, even some hues he couldn’t name.

  And despite the White Elf’s uneasiness, not all those folks were human. In one block alone. Kevin saw two haughty, elegant White Elves stride arrogantly by, acting as though humans didn’t even exist, a couple of more relaxed people whose not-quite human features and ever so slightly pointed ears revealed them as half-elven, three hulking guards who almost certainly were nearly full-blooded ogres, even a pair of Arachnia dressed in priestly robes, chittering together in a language that seemed made up only of consonants.

  Rows of shops lined the street, and the air rang with the cries of merchants bawling out their wares in half a dozen dialects. The bardling ached to examine the pile of scrolls one dealer offered, or the harps and lutes hanging in another booth, but he didn’t dare let the rest of his party get too far ahead. He’d never be able to find them again in this crowd!

  “It stinks,” Eliathanis muttered.

  Well, maybe it did, of animal and cooking oil and too many people of all sorts crowded in together, but overwhelmed by wonder as he was, Kevin hardly minded.

  Lydia unerringly led the way to a livery stable, a well-kept place warm with the friendly smells of horses and hay.

  “Smells better than the city,” the White Elf muttered.

  “Stop complaining.” As Kevin dismounted, the woman asked in an undertone, “Before we start spending: you do have the bribe money with you, don’t you?”

  The bardling started to pat the purse Count Volmar had given him, but Lydia caught his hand in an angry grip. “Don’t be a fool! You want to bring every thief in town down on us?”

  Stung, he straightened. “I am not a fool.”

  But Lydia, bargaining with the stable-keep, ignored him. Only after she was finished, and she and the stolid man had shaken on the deal. did she turn back to Kevin.

  “I don’t like the idea of you wandering around without a weapon. The first thing we do, kid, is get you a new sword.” She glanced at the elves. “We’ll be back as soon as we can, okay?”

  They nodded. Lydia grinned.

  “Come on, Kevin.”

  As they stepped back out onto the streets of Westerin, the bardling was overwhelmed—and this time not by wonder—While he’d been up on a horse’s back, he’d been raised up out of the worst of it, but now the crowd surrounded him like a noisy, smelly ocean trying to drown him.

  “This way,” Lydia called, and he struggled after her. After the first few “Excuse me’s” and “Pardon me’s,” Kevin gave up and pushed and shoved his way like everybody else, elbows jabbing his ribs and feet tromping on his toes—City life might be exciting, but he guessed it wasn’t so glamorous after all!

  “Looks like a likely place,” Lydia noted.

  Kevin frowned, puzzled. The only indication that this might be a weaponry shop was the sign creaking back and forth over the door, roughly painted with a weather-worn picture of crossed swords. Ah, of course! With all the different races in Westerin, who knew how many of them could actually read the common tongue —or read at all? But anyone could figure out what a simple picture meant!

  He followed Lydia inside, and found himself in a small, crowded room, facing a counter piled with a staggering variety of knives. Behind the counter a curtained doorway presumably led to a storeroom, and axes and swords and the occasional shield—its surface left blank so it could be painted with a customer’s coat-of-arms—covered most of the walls.

  “What can I do for ya?” a rough but undeniably female voice asked.

  Kevin jumped. He could have sworn the room was empty except for Lydia and himself.

  “Down here, boy.”

  He looked. The look became a stare.

  A woman she most certainly was, but one who barely came to his waist—and who was definitely not of human-kind. Buxom and brawny, she was almost as wide around as she was tall, but Kevin suspected that little of that roundness was fat. Her flat, high-cheekboned face was no longer young, and gray streaked the red braids coiled in an intricate knot on her head, but she looked about as fragile as a boulder.

  “I’m Grakka, owner of this place.” The woman stopped with an amused snort. “What’s the matter, boy? Never seen a dwarf before?”

  “I... uh ... no. I mean, yes. I mean, one of your race stopped in Bracklin once, my—my village. But he was axx! And all the songs say—”

  “That dwarves only come in one kind: male?” She gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “Where’d ya think we came from? Jumped up outa rocks all full-grown? Bah, humans! Ya come to gawk, boy, or to buy?”

  “To buy,” Lydia said. “The kid needs a new weapon.”

  Kevin shook the fragments of the broken sword out of the scabbard. “Can you fix this?”

  “What d’ya take me for, a miracle-worker?” Grakka lifted the broken blade to the light, squinting along its length. “Piece a’ junk.”

  “A count gave it to me!”

  “Then his armorer’s been cheating him.” She pulled aside the curtain, yelling into the back of the store, “Elli! Yo, Elli! Wake up, girl, we got customers! Get me the rack of one-handers—Yeah, that’s the one.”

  A slightly smaller figure staggered out with an armload of swords, which she dropped on the counter with a clatter. Kevin stared all over again, but this time in appreciation.

  Elli was almost certainly Grakka’s daughter, but even though the bardling couldn’t deny she was almost as squat and powerfully built as her mother, she was still as pretty in her own nonhuman way as any girl in Bracklin. Her eyes were big and blue, sparkling with mischief as she looked at him, her nose was
pertly upturned, and her long yellow braids curved smoothly down her simple blue tunic and skirt and the curves of her buxom young body in a way that made Kevin swallow hard.

  He froze in panic as she swayed that curvy body to his side.

  “I’m Elli. But you already know that. What’s your name?”

  “I—I—I’m ... uh ... Kevin.”

  “Uh-Kevin?” she teased.

  “N-no. Just Kevin.”

  “That’s a nice name.” She fixed her big blue eyes on his face. “Do you think my name is nice, too?”

  “I—”

  “Elli!” her mother snapped, “Stop bothering the boy. You, boy, come here.”

  Elli flounced away, pouting deliriously. Sheepishly, Kevin went up to the counter. “Here,” Grakka said shortly. “Try this.”

  Kevin looked at the sword in dismay. “It’s so ...”

  “Plain?” Grakka finished. “Pretty never won battles. Go ahead. Try it out.”

  Kevin took a few practice swings, then tried an experimental pass or two. He straightened, smiling. “I like it. It feels ... right.”

  “Good. Because from what your warrior buddy here tells me, there’s no time to design a sword specially for you.” She gave him a speculative glance. “Too bad. It’s always a challenge to make a sword that’ll be useful for a reasonable while for you younglings who are still changing build almost every day.” Grakka shrugged. “Ah well, some other time. That’ll be five gold crowns.”

  “Five ...”

  “Go wait outside,” Lydia murmured to him. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Kevin knew that an adventurer as professional as Lydia would know how to bargain much better than someone from a small town. But that didn’t stop him from feeling a surge of annoyance at being sent away like a little boy.

  “Hi, Kevin,” a voice purred.

  “Uh, hi, Elli.”

  She smiled up at him as brightly as a sunny day. “I have to spend all my time in this dull old place. I never get to go anywhere. But an adventurer like you must have seen all kinds of wonderful things.”

  Westerin rfaff?

  “I, uh ... “ Kevin wasn’t about to confess the truth about Bracklin and his drab life to this lovely creature. “Sure. Why don’t we sit down “—he patted a bench along the wall—” and I’ll tell you all about them.”

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a painful wait after all. Kevin began weaving a tale of Bardic wonder about his adventures in Count Volmar’s casde and on the road to Westerin. As Elli stared at him adoringly, he turned the skirmish with the bandits into epic adventure, spinning it out until he and his party had overcome a whole army of outlaws.

  “Why, that’s wonderful!” Elli breathed, edging closer to him.

  She was, he discovered, wearing some sort of sweet, flowery perfume, a heady scent Warily, he let his hand slide towards her, and felt a shock race through him when her own small hand, rough with work but delicate all the same, closed about his fingers. Breathless, the bardling sat frozen, not daring to move, wondering what would happen if he tried to put an arm around her. About him the bustle of Westerin seemed as distant and remote as a dream.

  Kevin nearly yelped when Lydia tapped him on the shoulder. “Wake up, lover boy. Here’s your sword.”

  Blushing, Kevin released Elli’s hand and scrambled to his feet

  “You owe Grakka two gold crowns, four silver,” Lydia continued blandly. “And you, Erri—”

  “That’s Elli!” the dwarf girl said indignantly.

  “Whatever. Your mother’s calling you. Here’s the money we owe her. Now, scoot!”

  Elli scuttled into the shop. But she paused just long enough in the doorway to blow Kevin a kiss.

  Lydia chuckled. “Pretty, isn’t she? Can’t be a day over fifty.”

  “Fifty!”

  “Young for a dwarf. Momma Grakka has to be pushing a hundred, if not more. Yup, little Elli’s got to be fifty, all right, just about the dwarven age of puberty. Hot for marriage, too, or ... ah ... whatever. Grakka has her hands full!”

  She glanced at Kevin, who was still staring towards the weapons shop, and chuckled anew. “Forget it, kid. These human-Other romances never work out. Besides, in a few more years, sweet little Elli is gonna be all grown up and look just like her tough old momma.”

  Oh. Well. The bardling sighed, disillusioned.

  “Come on, Kevin. The elves must be bored out of their minds. And who knows what mischief Tich’ki’s working!”

  What Tich’ki had been doing was trying to teach the two elves how to play cards. She had already, it turned out, won one night’s free lodging for their horses from the stable-keep.

  “Never even noticed the cards were marked, eh?” Lydia murmured wryly. “And don’t give me that ‘innocent little me’ look, either, my dear. I know you far too well! Let’s get out of here before we wind up in prison.”

  If anything, the crowds seemed to have gotten worse as the day progressed. Kevin, one hand on his new sword, the other on his purse, struggled his way along, beginning to long for the nice, peaceful, open countryside.

  All at once, a particularly rough body barreled into him.

  “Hey!” the bardling yelled. “Why don’t you watch where—”

  A second man hurtled into him, nearly sending the bardling sprawling. For one horrifying moment he was sure he was going to go down, and be trampled by the heedless crowd, but then Naitachal’s hand closed about his arm, pulling him back to his feet. The Dark Elf gestured the whole party into an alcove where they could be out of the stream of traffic,

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I—” Kevin broke off abruptly. Something didn’t feel quite right ... “Wait a minute.” Oh no, oh no, this couldn’t be! The bardling searched himself frantically, then cried in panic, “It’s gone! The purse Count Volmar gave me is gone!”

  Chapter X

  “Oh hell,” Lydia muttered. “I knew this was going to happen.”

  “That man—” Kevin gasped out, “the one who jostled me—he must have stolen my money! We have to—”

  “Have to what? Do you see him anywhere?”

  “No, but the guard—”

  “Did you see his face? No? Can you tell them anything about what he looks like?”

  “No ...”

  Lydia let out her breath in a gusty sigh. “Give it up, boy. The money’s gone.”

  “But ...” Kevin struggled to keep his voice from shaking from sheer panic.

  All about him, the city continued its busy life, not caring whether he lived or died, and he had nothing left but the few small coins in his own purse. They weren’t enough to let him survive, let alone bribe anyone. He’d failed the count. Worse, he’d failed Charina!

  Hopelessly the bardling asked, “What are we going to do?”

  “Well, we can’t do anything without money, that’s for sure,” Lydia said brusquely.

  “Then it’s foolish to remain here.” Eliathanis pulled his cloak about himself, adjusting his hood with fastidious care. “I said we should never have come to Westerin.”

  “But—”

  “We’ve wasted enough time, I am going to do what I should have done from the start, and explore on my own.”

  “No!” Kevin cried. “You can’t abandon—” But the White Elf had already vanished into the crowds. “the team,” the bardling finished helplessly. “Naitachal! You can’t leave, too!”

  “No?11 The Dark Elf’s eyes glinted from beneath his hood, cool and unreadable as blue ice. “‘There is more to be learned here if I’m not burdened with ... anyone else.”

  “But—wait—’’ Kevin whirled to Lydia. “ I suppose you’re going to go off on your own, too!”

  “Hell, no. I don’t abandon the helpless, remember?” All at once she grinned. “Hey, cheer up, kid. It’s not so bad.”

  “Not so bad! We don’t have any money!”

  “I’ve been stuck penniless in cities before, some of them a lot nastier
to strangers than this one, and I’ve always managed to land on my feet. Let me think a minute ... Ha, yes. Tich’ki, what do you think of this?”

  She murmured in the fairy’s ear—Tich’ki laughed and yanked a lock of the woman’s hair—”Ah yes, of course!”

  “All right, then. Come on, Kevin.”

  “Where are we going?”

  She didn’t answer. Kevin, struggling to keep up with the woman, who was knifing her way skillfully through the crowd, hardly noticed the buzz of fairy wings in his ear. But he did notice tough little fingers snatching the pouch holding his last few coins.