"It's what I'd do," she commented, rolling over to lie stomach-down, her chin on her hands, her slippered feet protruding from beneath the billowy robe of white wool she'd put on after her bath, "if I were selfish and greedy, and had spells whereby I could enslave other mages. Now that Altiokis isn't out there to make me fall off a wall someplace, I'd start putting the word around that I'm ready to teach all you tender little fledglings."
"You really are a damn nasty woman."
She shrugged. "Hey-nine years in a convent makes you tough." With her baby-fine quiff of ivory hair falling down over eyes smoke-gray in the shadows, she had never looked less tough. He handed her the beer and turned his head to the soft, familiar clump of Moggin's footfalls on the wood veranda outside.
"Come!" he said, and a moment later the philosopher entered, huddled in his dirt-colored burnoose and plaid cloak and looking, as usual, like a house plant someone had accidentally left outside during the first snow. He was carrying a weighted wooden training sword, and looked as if he'd definitely gotten the worst from whoever had been sparring with him.
"At my current rate of learning," he said with dignity, sinking cross-legged onto the hearth, "I have estimated that by the time I've trained long enough to withstand one of your men, I shall have been dead for forty-three years."
"At least they'll bury you with a sword in your hand," the Wolf said comfortingly.
"Ah, good. Another lifelong wish fulfilled." He produced a leather bottle of beer from beneath the plaid, topped off the tankard in Starhawk's hands, and took a morose pull from the flask. "However, I didn't come here to make plans for my funeral, but to tell you that I think I know the name of Drosis' master. The Big Thurg was one of the men who got part of the loot in Zane's quarters at Zane's death. Today he traded the last of it-bits and scraps of silver for their metal content, mostly-to Opium for credit in the tavern, and Penpusher, who was there, recognized some of them as pieces of an astrolabe. Drosis had a silver one, which was among my things-Zane must have looted it from my house."
As he spoke he dug in the flat leather purse that hung at his belt, and Sun Wolf remembered Dogbreath's voice, in the gloom of Starhawk's room with the carnival riot going on outside ... damned if Zane hadn't been going through the house while everyone else was out in the courtyard ... From Moggin's voice Sun Wolf could tell he wasn't aware of exactly when Zane had acquired the instrument, and forbore to enlighten him.
The philosopher handed him a bent piece of metal. It was battered and badly tarnished, but Sun Wolf recognized the rete of a large astrolabe. On one side, the positions of the stars were vaguely discernible, finely engraved in the soft metal. On the other-the side which would be invisible against the circle of the astrolabe itself when the instrument was assembled-he made out the name Metchin Mallincoros in spidery letters.
"You sure that's Drosis' master and not just the maker of the astrolabe?"
Moggin nodded. "Drosis told me his master made the astrolabe, for one thing, and you can see the orthography's the same here on the front where the names of the stars are graven. The joining of the letters 'ten' in 'Metchin' is the same as the star Atchar. It's characteristic of ... "
"I'll take your word for it," the Wolf said. "Metchin of Mallincore." He stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "We never did make it up to the Mistlands, you know. It's a start ... if, as the Hawk says, he or his surviving student isn't going to come up with some other type of geas to use on fledgling wizards."
"Well," Moggin said uneasily, "I remember there were at least two other types of enslavement spells mentioned in the Ciamfret Grimoire, though not given ... "
"This gets better all the time."
"If we're going to Mallincore, I hope you like garlic," the Hawk remarked, sitting up. "Chief, I think you're going about this all wrong."
He took the tankard, of which, though brimfull while she snaked from a prone to a sitting position, she hadn't spilled a drop. "Considering the events of the past year, I'm not going to give you an argument," he grumbled. "You got an alternative plan?"
"Why find a teacher at all?" she said slowly. "Why not take time to learn what you have? To study it thoroughly, to work with it ... to practice what you know you can do. You have Moggy to help you; you have the books of the Witches; you have Drosis' books, the three here and whatever we can loot from Purcell's shanty. Yes, you need teaching-but you also need time to learn. You aren't giving yourself that by baring around the countryside, looking for somebody to make you a better wizard. You need to make yourself a better wizard, Chief. It's got to start with you. Then maybe you'll be a little safer going out looking for a master."
He was silent for a long time, staring into the heart of the fire and wondering why he felt fear. Fear that if he didn't make it, he would have no reason to give, no excuse? Was that what he had been seeking-someone to take the responsibility for his success or failure? Wizardry, like combat, needed a teacher-one could no more learn to wield power from a book than one could learn to swim. But it needed practice, as well, and unstinting work, solitude, patience, and care.
He remembered his exhaustion on the road north from the Dragon's Backbone to Kwest Mralwe, traveling all day, vowing to himself he'd look in the books for some kind of cure for Starhawk and falling asleep at the end of each day's ride. He remembered the calm peace of the last few months, the reading and study, trying to puzzle truth from the books, and the sense of time being his own. Not months, he thought. Years.
He glanced up and saw the glowing dots of rose light reflected in Starhawk's eyes. "Here?"
"Unless you're willing to hire an agent to field job offers in the Middle Kingdoms."
"We'll have to go back to Kwest Mralwe, at least, to see what's in Purcell's house."
She nodded. "And we'll have to do that as soon as the roads are clear, before some other enterprising hoodoo gets the same idea. But ... "
Footsteps clacked hollow on the veranda again, swift and clipped, and Sun Wolf had barely time to identify who it had to be before she slid open the door. "Wolf ... "
She crossed the plank floor with her old, swift grace, holding up the wine-colored velvet of her skirt. To his surprise, Starhawk greeted her as a friend. Of course, he thought. Over the winter in the tavern, they, too, had time to get acquainted. Opium asked, "Did you see who came to camp this afternoon?"
"Messenger from Ciselfarge, wasn't it?" He knew the arms of most of the small merchant cities of the Middle Kingdoms and the Gwarl Peninsula, and had identified the white castle on the green-and-red checkerboard embroidered on the courier's tabard that afternoon, even through the crusted layers of mud. "That's Ari's business, not mine anymore."
"Guess again." Dim firelight splashed off the barbaric rubies of her gown clasps under the fur-lined cloak-clasps Sun Wolf remembered the Little Thurg having stolen years ago in the Peninsula somewhere. He'd undoubtedly sold them to her this winter when he ran out of credit at the tavern.
"After all that happened through the winter, you know the troop's short-down to six hundred or so, fighting force. Ari's taken Ciselfarge's offer ... "
"Kedwyr attacking them?" Opium looked startled at this piece of mind-reading. "I've been expecting that since they signed their non-aggression treaty the summer before last. Go ahead."
"Yes," she said, rather shaken; the Wolf did not comment on the fact that Opium was evidently being included in negotiations meetings these days. Considering how Ari and Penpusher had been taken at Kwest Mralwe, it wasn't a bad idea. "Ari wants to, because he owes the cost of the troop twice over to Xanchus and the other tradesmen for food, medicines, and mules for the summer's campaign. It's not a debt he can welch on, either," she added sapiently, "not unless he wants to carry his tents in his pockets from now on. But now Xanchus is saying he wants Ari to take out the debt in trade, and remain here to guard the diggings while they're being set up."
"At a rate of about a third what Ciselfarge is offering," the Wolf guessed, and again Opium looked sur
prised.
"Half, actually. So, since the Mayor owns most of Ari's debts, they've reached a compromise to leave a hundred men as a security force-and you, to recruit and train a hundred more."
Sun Wolf jerked bolt upright on his bench, his one eye blazing. "ME!?"
Three months ago Opium would have flinched and gazed at him with those liquid eyes; now she folded her hands calmly before her jeweled belt buckle and pointed out, "I can see Xanchus' point. Those diggings are worth not only money-they're power to whoever can control the trade. That's why we're using go-betweens and conducting the negotiations in the south in secret-so we won't get some Middle Kingdom army on our backs."
"That's their goddam problem," Sun Wolf retorted. "I'm not working for that fat little crook ... "
"But he owns most of your debts," she informed him. "He's been buying debts all winter, as soon as it was known there was no way to pay off the credit with real money."
Sun Wolf's voice cracked into a hoarse roar. "The hell I'll stay here all summer as a-a guard over some festering hole in the ground! I'm no man's poxy debt thrall ... "
"I shoulda left him locked up," Starhawk remarked to no one in particular.
"Legally, he can take the debts out however he wants, you know," Opium pointed out. "According to him, you set up the precedents on debts and welching yourself ... "
"I did, goddammit, but that was different!"
It wasn't, he knew, even as he said it. The camp depended too much on the good will of the town to disrupt the economics of good faith.
"He's over there now." She nodded back toward the half-open door, through which, in a narrow bar of bright amber torchlight, figures could be seen between the smoke-stained brick of the corner of Ari's house and the crumbling statues of the colonnade. Ari, the gold rings in his ears and hair glinting softly where the light caught them, was nodding gravely at the inaudible jobations of Xanchus, muffled like a cabbage in a dozen fur-lined robes, gimlet-sharp eyes peeking out from beneath the fur brim of his hat. Penpusher stood by, skewed white ruff lying dead over his black shoulders like a smashed daisy, his account books in hand, and next to him, the messenger from Ciselfarge with his mud-slobbered heraldic tabard pulled on awkwardly over several layers of woolen hose and a sheepskin doublet. "If you want to get away before he can ask you face-to-face, I can hold them."
Her dark eyes met his, and held. "Fair trade," she added, with the ghost of a smile.
"You mean because I am forty years old, and ugly?" He took her hands, and bent to kiss her lips lightly.
Her smile broadened with mischief, and the comfort of knowing that he would remain, if not a lover, at least a trusted friend. "Something like that. Over the summer I'll see what I can do about buying your paper back ... " Then she laughed. "And not to take it out in trade, if that's worrying you. Unless you insist, of course ... Poor Dogbreath's been living in our back room with Gully for weeks. Bron's going to sneak him out in the campaign wagon when the troop leaves, since the Goddess is staying here as commander of the mine guards."
"That'll teach him to bet the same twenty strat five times." He kissed her again, and glanced over at Starhawk, only to see that she'd gone. A moment later, she emerged from the bedroom, buckling her sword belt on over the thick black leather of doublet and jerkin, into which she'd changed with her usual lightning efficiency.
"Now I know why I could never go on the run," Opium laughed, releasing his hands and walking over to the Hawk in a silvery frou-frou of swishing skirts. "It never takes me less than an hour to get dressed, and that's without makeup ... " Starhawk laughed, as the two women hugged. "I'll give you as much time as I can." And she was gone, slipping through the rear door into the garden so that Xanchus and the others in negotiation with Ari wouldn't realize where she'd been.
"Hawk, can you get the horses while I pack your gear?" the Wolf said. "I think Little Thurg's on gate duty tonight ... "He turned back to Moggin, who had risen unnoticed in the gloom of the hearth pit. "You coming?"
The philosopher looked a little surprised that he'd been asked. "If you'll have me."
"It's gonna be rough," Sun Wolf cautioned, gauging with his mind the weather, the cold, and the frailty of that stooped gray form. "And Kwest Mralwe might not be easy for you, considering."
The sensitive mouth flinched a little, then Moggin shook his head. "After four months of the bucolic amenities of Wrynde, believe me, I am willing to go almost any place where books and soap may be purchased at will. I don't suppose anywhere will be easy for me, for a time," he added more quietly. "But I'd really rather be in the company of friends, even if it is on a grossly substandard road, than alone here. I'll try not to be a nuisance."
"Get your sword and your astrolabe, and meet us by the stables, then. And don't let them see you leave." He strode for the kitchen to collect the food they'd need for the journey, his mind already running ahead to the road and to the weather, wondering if he should turn aside the driving rain he sensed not far off or whether it would be of more use to hide their tracks from his own incensed men.
In the gloom beyond the tiny stove, he could just make out Starhawk, a lanky black silhouette against the few inches of open door, the dim torchlight from the colonnade catching blurry reflections on her pale hair and the metal of her jerkin, sword belt, and boot tops. Coming over to her, he saw why she was waiting. Xanchus and the messenger from Ciselfarge were standing at the corner of the colonnade, expostulating and pointing in the direction of the house. Past Ari's shoulder, they would be able to see movement in the bare rocks of the garden.
A moment later Opium emerged from Ari's doorway behind them, said something which caught their attention in her husky, drawling voice. They turned, looking back toward her, and it seemed to Sun Wolf that, in that moment, Ari gave her a querying look, and she replied with the most infinitesimal of nods. The young commander's voice was clearly audible, saying, "Oh, before we present him with your proposition, I did mean to ask you about the terms for buying your mules ... " And, draping a muscular arm around each man's shoulder, he drew them back into the shadows of his house.
Sun Wolf grinned, put his arm around the Hawk's waist and kissed her hard. "Come on," he said. "We can be ten miles away before they know we're gone."
THE END
Hambly, Barbara - Sun Wolf 3 - Dark hand of magic.txt Page 34
