Of course, peace appeared to have treated this pair far worse than the war had; they were thin and hungry, and their clothes had obviously been lived in for months, probably months without shelter.
“Valder?” The man stared at him. “You mean Valder of Kardoret?”
“That was I,” Valder admitted.
“The man who killed a shatra in single combat?”
Startled, Valder asked, “How do you know about that?”
“I was with the party that found you standing over the corpse. Gods, that was a weird thing! That body had all this strange black stuff in it — I’ll never forget it. When we burned it, it stank like nothing I have ever smelled. And it was you! It was! You look different now, without the uniform, and you’ve put on a little weight, I think, but it’s you.”
“Yes, it is,” Valder agreed.
“And you’re an innkeeper now? Valder of the Magic Sword, an innkeeper?”
“Better than starving, isn’t it? The war is over — not much call for magic swords anymore.” He smiled.
The other grimaced. “Anything is better than starving, I’d say. I’ve had a little more experience of it than I like. Still, a man like you — you weren’t any common soldier, you could have made your way in the world.”
“I am making my way in the world. I own this inn and the landing on the river, don’t I?”
“Oh, but you could have been rich! A man who could kill a demon, you could have done almost anything!”
“It was the magic sword that killed the shatra, not me; I’m happy here.”
The man shrugged. “If you say so,” he said.
“I say so. Now, what can I get you? Supper was over hours ago, and there isn’t any ale, but I can find some cold food, if you like, and we have wine and good clean water.”
The man looked embarrassed. He called out to his companion, “Hey, Tesra! Have you got any money?”
Valder sighed inwardly. These two were obviously not going to make him rich.
Tesra produced five copper bits, and after a little dickering Valder conceded that that was a fair price for staying the night on the floor by the hearth with a meal of scraps and water. When that was settled and the two tattered veterans were gnawing on pigeon bones — rabbits had become quite scarce, due to extensive hunting, but pigeons made a decent pie — Valder asked, “Where are you headed? You must have been on the road quite some time.”
Tesra looked up at him. “We thought we’d try our luck in Azrad’s Ethshar; it’s been no good anywhere else. We’ve been on the road since the war ended, been up to Sardiron of the Waters and on through the Passes, and then came down the Great River from there.”
Valder felt a twinge of guilt. “Was that five bits your last money? Ethshar’s expensive these days, and, from what I hear, there isn’t much work.”
“Oh, we’ll get by,” said Selmer, the man who had recognized Valder. “We’re not picky.”
Valder shrugged. He had made his gesture, given his warning; if the two of them chose not to heed it, that was not his problem. Rather than continuing with the subject, he asked about Sardiron. He had heard of the town, captured almost intact from the Northern Empire when it fell, but he knew little about it.
He talked with the pair until almost dawn. Tesra fell asleep, utterly exhausted, while the conversation continued, but Selmer lasted several hours before his eyelids, too, drooped. Finally Valder rose and left the two of them asleep on the floor. He left a brief note for Parl, the man who was to handle morning business, saying the two had paid in advance for the night but not for breakfast, and then retired. When he awoke, the sun was high in the eastern sky, and the two veterans were gone. Parl reported that they had left an hour or so earlier, hoping to reach the city by nightfall.
Valder knew they would not manage it; one had to leave the inn within an hour after dawn to reach Ethshar before dark, traveling on foot. He wished them well and forgot about them.
At least, he forgot about them for a sixnight or so.
Supper was being dished out, a thick chowder and stale bread being all that Valder had on hand, when a late arrival knocked. Valder happened to be free, so he answered the door himself, admitting a party of four. First in the door was a young woman in flamboyant red velvet trimmed with white fur; behind her came two huge men wearing what looked like military uniforms, but in a pattern and color Valder had never seen before. Last came another woman, this one short and plump and wearing blue satin.
“Welcome, all!” Valder said. “Supper is just being served, if you would care to join us. The meal is a copper each with water, or a silver bit with wine. I’m afraid we have no ale or strong spirits.”
“We did not come here to eat,” the woman in red announced.
“A room, then? We have a few still available, two coppers the night.”
“We are looking for someone.”
Valder noticed that the woman spoke with a peculiar accent. He had taken it to be nervousness at first, but now thought she might be from somewhere where the language was spoken differently. He had noticed a slight difference between the people of Azrad’s south and Gor’s northwest previously, but this was far more marked. It made judging her tone difficult. Valder guessed she was from some obscure corner of the Small Kingdoms.
“This is my inn,” he said. “And I want no trouble. You will have to tell me whom you’re looking for and why.”
“We seek Valder of the Magic Sword.”
The woman insisted on speaking quite loudly, and the entire population of the room — three of Valder’s employees and fourteen guests — were now listening closely, the chowder forgotten for the moment.
“I’m Valder, now the Innkeeper,” he said. “Come inside and close the door.” He had no idea why anybody might be looking for him and was not at all sure he wanted to find out. This group hardly looked like anything Gor might send after him. He remembered Tesra and Selmer, who had insisted on calling him Valder of the Magic Sword, and wondered if they had anything to do with it.
He was about to suggest a more private conference when the thought struck him that Gor of the Rocks might not care to send anyone obvious on a mission to deal with his former assassin. Gor was tricky enough to have contrived a group like this. Valder decided abruptly that privacy was not called for. When the woman in blue had closed the door, he led the way to an unoccupied table and gestured for the newcomers to sit.
The woman in red hesitated, and the others were all obviously following her lead. “Is there no place more private?” she asked.
That convinced Valder that he did not want to be alone with his group. “No,” he said. “We speak here if you wish to speak with me at all.”
Reluctantly, the woman in red nodded and took a seat; her companions followed, and Valder, too, sat down.
“I am Sadra of Pethmor, Pethmor being the rightful capital of all Ethshar. We have come seeking your help.”
Valder interpreted this to mean that Pethmor was indeed one of the Small Kingdoms. Most of them claimed to be the ancient capital. “What sort of help?” he asked.
“We came to Azrad’s city to find someone who might be able to help us, and two men there told us where you might be found. They said that you were the greatest fighter that had ever lived, that you had slain a northern demon in single combat. Is this true?”
“No.” Valder was reluctant to elaborate. “No?” Sadra was taken aback. “But you are Valder of the Magic Sword? They swore...”
“They swore? What did they swear?”
“One of them swore that you had slain a demon...”
“Oh. Well, yes, I did kill a shatra, which is half demon, but I’m hardly a great fighter. I had a magic sword.” It seemed unwise to mention that he still had the sword and that it was in fact hanging in plain sight not ten yards away.
“Ah. The sword is gone, then?”
Valder shrugged.
“Of course it is, or you would not be an innkeeper — but perhaps you could get i
t back? Or perhaps you might help anyway?”
“You still haven’t said what sort of help you want.”
“Oh, it is quite simple. There is a dragon, a rather large one, that has been scorching the fields...” Again, as seemed to be a habit with her, she let the sentence trail off.
“You want me to kill a dragon for you?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Valder put his palms on the table as if to rise. “I’m sorry, Sadra, but I can’t help you. I wouldn’t stand a chance; the only time I ever fought a dragon single-handed, I wound up running for my life.”
“Then you have fought dragons before?”
“Just a little one and, I told you, it almost killed me. I will not fight your dragon for you. Talk it out of burning your fields, or hire a dragon-tamer from the city, if no one will fight it. Now, will you have supper here, or a room for the night, or will you be going?”
The party from Pethmor stayed for supper and for the night, and for breakfast as well. Sadra made several more attempts to enlist Valder as a dragon slayer, but without success.
In the morning, as she was about to depart, Sadra stopped and turned back. “Selmer told me you were a hero,” she said. “That you would be glad of an excuse to give up this dreary inn. I think he misjudged you badly.”
Valder nodded agreement. “I think you’re right. I like it here.”
Sadra nodded in turn, plainly disgusted, and left.
Valder thought that was the end of the matter — until the next party turned up, trying to recruit him. This group was not after a dragon, but intended to loot the ruined cities of the north and wanted to hire Valder as a guard. A few surviving shatra were said to linger still amid the ruins, and what better protector could they have than the only man who had ever slain one in fair fight?
Valder got rid of them politely and marveled at how nobody acknowledged the part the sword’s magic had played. They all credited him with far more prowess than he actually possessed. They wanted to believe in heroes, not ordinary, everyday magic.
Valder was no adventurer, no great warrior; he was just an innkeeper and glad to be one. He said as much to anyone who asked. Yes, he had a magic sword once, and yes, he had killed a shatra with it, and yes, he even admitted to having served as an assassin when that story finally surfaced — but all he was now was an innkeeper.
That was what he told the doddering wizard who wanted to hire him to fetch the ingredients for a certain unspecified spell and what he told the self-proclaimed mercenary captain who was trying to raise a company of war heroes to fight in the continuing border squabbles in the Small Kingdoms. From what Valder had heard from his guests, these little conflicts were too small to be considered real wars. The “captain,” who had never risen above sergeant in the Great War, believed a small group of experienced men could make a big difference. Valder suspected he was quite correct in that, but was not interested in being one of those men and said as much.
He liked being an innkeeper. He enjoyed hearing his guests talk of their travels, their hopes, their goals. He enjoyed seeing the weary to bed, feeding the hungry, and serving drink to the thirsty, and watching their faces relax as their problems faded. As an innkeeper, he took no great risks. True, he made no great gains, but that did not bother him. He had not killed anyone since the end of the war, nor had anyone seriously attempted to kill him — he discounted a few drunken threats from men who could barely stand, let alone fight. The worst problem he ever confronted as an innkeeper, once he had found reliable suppliers of food and drink, was an occasional boisterous drunk, and the one advantage he saw in his growing fame as Valder of the Magic Sword was that troublemakers who had heard of his reputation avoided him. As the inn’s proprietor, he was his own man; admittedly, he took orders from his customers, but only when he chose to. It was nothing like the military.
Yes, he liked being an innkeeper. It was infinitely more enjoyable than being an assassin or an adventurer. He preferred Wirikidor over the mantel, not on his belt. He had to repeat this often. The talkative Selmer and the various guests who had overheard his conversation with Sadra or with others who had tried to coax him away spread his fame far and wide. In general, Valder did not mind; he rather enjoyed being famous and suspected that his reputation drew business that might otherwise have passed up the Inn at the Bridge in favor of other, newer inns that had sprung up along the highways.
He turned down offers that ranged from dull and dangerous to downright bizarre, requests for aid from silk-robed aristocrats and starving children — the latter leaving disappointed, but always well fed. He refused to rescue princesses, slay dragons, depose tyrants, locate lost siblings, kill pirates, loot tombs, battle wizards, terrorize witches, dispose of demons, settle boundary disputes, and search for everything from ancient magical treasures to a missing cat. Whenever possible, he tried to suggest someone who might serve in his stead. He was dismayed that, even safely sheathed, Wirikidor was still affecting his life.
He suspected that nobody ever believed him when he said that he enjoyed innkeeping, that many thought him a coward or a fraud. When a messenger from Gor of the Rocks came to ask if he had reconsidered his retirement, Valder turned him down politely, as he had all the rest, and was relieved when the man departed peacefully, apparently convinced that Valder was a harmless coward.
Nobody, not even Tandellin, believed that all he wanted was to be an innkeeper, but it was the entire truth.
CHAPTER 23
The Inn at the Bridge flourished. Valder flourished with it, and in fact all the world seemed to be doing well once the initial confusion had passed.
In 5000 the three overlords of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars announced that the last northern stragglers had been eliminated and the last vestiges of the Empire destroyed. In celebration, the annual Festival that began 5001 ran for seven days instead of the traditional five. A few realists pointed out that this corrected astrological errors resulting from wartime neglect of the calendar, but they were generally ignored in the widespread merry-making.
That was the year that Valder finally got glass panes in all his windows.
In 5002 the northern territories surrounding Sardiron of the Waters refused to acknowledge the rule of the Hegemony when tax collectors came around. Instead they set themselves up as an array of baronies under the erstwhile officers of the occupying armies, with a high council meeting at Sardiron itself. The triumvirate, well aware that the people of the Hegemony wanted no more war, did nothing about it. The rumor circulated that Azrad and Gor had decided to wait, outvoting Anaran, in hopes that the baronies would tear themselves apart in petty rivalries as the Small Kingdoms had done, allowing the Hegemony to move in and pick up the pieces. If the rumor was true, this appeared to be a miscalculation; no reports came of internecine strife in the north. Instead, caravans came down the highways and barges down the Great River, filling Valder’s guest rooms and his purse.
Valder heard all the news and all the rumors from his guests, but paid little attention. That was the year he finally considered his cellar to be adequate, with thirty wines, a dozen ales and beers, and both brandy and oushka in stock. One of his former workmen now had a brewery and provided much of his supply. His staff was down to just himself, Sarai, Tandellin, and Parl.
By 5005 virtually all the veterans were settled, and the offer of free land was discontinued. Almost all the old battlefields were now farms, and the vast grasslands that had stretched from the Great River to the western ocean had been plowed under and sown with corn and wheat and barley. Ethshar of the Rocks and Ethshar of the Sands were real cities now, rivals — but never quite equals — of Azrad’s Ethshar, now called Ethshar of the Spices in recognition of its most profitable trade. The Small Kingdoms were still splintering and fighting amongst themselves, and most of the people of the Hegemony had come to think of them as barbaric. It was hard to remember that they had once been the heart of civilization, Old Ethshar. But then, nobody mentioned Old Ethshar any mor
e. The past was forgotten, and the Hegemony and its three capitals were the only Ethshar.
That was the year that Valder tried unsuccessfully to start a ferry service in competition with Azrad’s toll bridge. A torch “accidentally” dropped from the bridge onto the ferry one night and burned it down to the waterline, putting an end to that enterprise. Valder decided against rebuilding; the next stray torch might have hit his inn. The walls were stone, but the roof was thatch.
In 5009 the northern coast followed Sardiron’s lead and declared itself the independent Kingdom of Tintallion, with joint capitals on the mainland and on the island from which it took its name. Valder calculated, after much discussion with travelers who had been there, that the mainland capital was just about on the site of the camp where he had served prior to the desperate enemy drive to the sea that had left him stranded alone in the woods.
That was the year an incompletely tamed dragon accidentally burned down Valder’s stable. Terrified by the results of its actions, the dragon had smashed its way out through the wall and vanished, never to be seen again. Fortunately, the dragon’s owner did not get away in time to avoid a generous cash settlement for the damages, and the only injuries were to two boys knocked down and bruised when they attempted to catch the other animals fleeing through the hole left by the dragon’s departure.
In 5011 Anaran of the Sands died at the age of sixty-three, and, after a month or so of widespread concern, Azrad and Gor declared Anaran’s ten-year-old son Edaran of Ethshar to be the new overlord of Ethshar of the Sands. Since would-be commanders could no longer prove themselves in battle, the surviving overlords had decided to make their positions hereditary. Nobody seemed to object, Valder noted, and it did ensure peaceful transitions. Azrad and Gor both had sons to succeed them, and no one seemed very concerned about having a mere child as cornier of the Hegemony.
That was the year that someone tried to rob the Inn at the Bridge.
It was a slow night in deep winter, the fourth day of the month of Icebound. Enough snow was falling to discourage the neighbors from dropping in for a meal or a drink, and no trade came down the highway from the north at this time of year. The river never froze this far south, but, as it happened, no boats had stopped that day, and no travelers from the Small Kingdoms to the east or the Hegemony’s other cities to the west had happened by. Tandellin and Sarai had gone home to the house they had built for themselves on the other side of the highway, and Parl had gone off, as he often did, with a young woman. He might not be back for days, but in winter he was rarely needed. Valder sat alone in the dining hall, keeping the fire alive and contemplating the coals, not thinking about anything in particular.
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