by John Booth
“I cannot see it being Tallis or Jenver, therefore logically it must be Dalk,” Toren offered.
“Gilan Dalk attacking anybody is difficult to believe; Dalk attacking the Boat Company is ludicrous,” Hal opined. Neither of the men disagreed with him. Still the letter was clear. The Boat Company’s headquarters in the harbor in Dalk had been ransacked and an attempt made to burn it down. The Magician King’s buildings resisted burning and the attempt had failed.
“Perhaps somebody wanted us to take the Steam Dragon to the harbor in Tallis,” Seb suggested.
“You think Tallis has something to do with this?” Captain Toren asked.
“We are transporting goods for Gally Sorn and anything to do with the Sorn’s is suspicious, Captain. The Sorn’s are supporters of the house of Tallis, I would remind you,” Seb pointed out.
“It is an action much more in keeping with Deren Sorn than any of the royal families,” the Captain admitted reluctantly.
“There is nothing I would not suspect Deren Sorn of doing,” Hal stated firmly. “We should assume he is behind it. The only other conceivable suspect is Maximus Tallis.”
“Whoever is behind it, our orders are clear. We shall dock in Tallis and not in Dalk,” the Captain said as he gathered up the letters.
“Deren Sorn wins again,” Seb Halder muttered.
“Nobody has won anything yet. The Boat Company has not survived for a thousand years by letting itself be trampled over,” Captain Toren pointed out.
“Are you sure you are up to going to breakfast?” Hala asked Nin anxiously. She had seen his pain as he carefully put on his shirt.
“The Captain says I can eat with the passengers until I am recovered, if you want me to,” Nin replied. “That is a great honor to bestow and I am going to take full advantage of it.”
“I don’t know…”
Nin grinned at her. “Think how much it will annoy Yan. Father says he is still incapable of working in the boiler room. I need to prove to him and the rest of the crew that I am stronger than he is.”
Hala grinned at the boy. “I suppose so. But if Daniel or Jalia has to carry you back, you can forget getting any pain relief for a few days.”
Gally Sorn strolled into the Keeper’s Breakfast Room as if she owned the place. Jalka stood at the other end of the room by a candle-heated trolley, putting scrambled egg onto her plate. If there were any more guests in the palace then they had not turned up, nor was there any sign of Jalka’s husband.
“What a beautiful morning,” Gally said to her sister cheerfully. “I could almost put our father right out of my mind on a day like this.”
Jalka turned, revealing a severely bruised eye. “Sadly for me, this is not a morning I can easily put my husband out of my mind,” she replied with a wry smile on her face.
“Tib did that to you?” Gally said in shock. “It wasn’t because of what we were doing earlier was it?
“No, my sister; it was nothing at all to do with you. He came home last night in a towering rage. Apparently, he was caught cheating at cards at his club, or should I say, his former club.”
“He wasn’t as good at cheating as you thought?” Gally enquired.
“I suspect he was as good as usual. I have never been able to spot him and you know how intensive our training was.”
“I remember all too painfully,” Gally stated and winced at the painful memory. “Then how was he caught?”
“Some woman going under the pseudonym of Jalia al’Dare humiliated him. She cheated rather better than Tib and then revealed his cheating in front of his friends.”
“That was probably the real Jalia al’Dare,” Gally said thoughtfully. “She and Daniel al’Degar are traveling on the Steam Dragon.”
“Both of them?” Jalka clapped her hands together at the thought of two heroes in town. “How utterly delightful. Is the al’Degar man any good in bed?”
“He looks as though he might be. However, we are not on good enough terms to find out, as they claim I have their possessions and they want them back. They will want in vain, as the items in question are hidden where they will never think to look.”
“This is not one of father’s plans is it? I wondered why you were angry, but if he has hired those two as mercenaries I can see why you would be so upset.”
“No, it’s not that,” Gally said as she poured out a glass of fruit juice. “Father insists we pay the traders the full value for the swords when we arrive at Slarn. And after I spent so much effort whittling their numbers down.”
“Oh, you haven’t killed Hadon have you? I always had a soft spot for Hadon Mallow. I imagined he would be very thrusting, if you know what I mean.” Jalka smiled as she recalled certain daydreams.
“He was, painfully thrusting in fact,” Gally said dismissively. “He is one of the traders missing and I presume he is dead.”
“Father is concerned that Maximus is overreaching himself,” Jalka said returning to the perennial subject of their father. “And any battle for the throne involving Oto Tallis will surely take forever as he is such a hopeless drip. Father is probably working to ensure adequate supplies for Tallis in the long term.”
“If he would only deal with Maximus we could finish this war in days.”
“Maximus is too volatile. I trust you are not dealing with him?” Jalka asked sharply. “Father will have you whipped for months if you were ever to be so foolish.”
“That would be better than ending up married to Tib Prentice.”
“Yes, I tend to agree with you,” Jalka agreed. “He was the punishment meted out when I did not enamor Uncle Gal.” Jalka sighed. “It is Jalia al’Dare who should be worried today. Tib will kill her before the Steam Dragon leaves.”
“And you had a successful night at the card tables?” Daniel enquired of Jalia as they sat down for breakfast.
“For the third and final time, Daniel, I had a wonderful time. I won a lot of money and today I will win even more,” Jalia said with exasperation clear in her voice. Daniel had been quizzing her since the moment they woke about what happened the night before.
“And nobody in this town is upset or seeking to have you strung up from the nearest tree?” Daniel persisted.
“No, they are not, Daniel. Everybody involved last night applauded my consummate skills and they are all looking forward to our return match tonight. Are you satisfied now?”
“Well, I suppose it had to happen someday,” Daniel said with a heartfelt sigh. “You are finally losing your touch.”
Jalia punched him none too gently on the arm. While Daniel was rubbing the pain out of it, Jalia tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the door where Nin and Hala had just entered the room.
“It looks like every step is agony for him,” Daniel remarked. “I would have thought another few days in bed would have been better for him.”
“Yes, but you are just an ill-educated farm boy, Nin is a sailor. They are obviously made of sterner stuff.”
Daniel stood and pulled out chairs for the children as they approached. Jalia put her cloak over Nin’s chair so that his back would be protected from its hard wooden frame.
“I’m just going over to get Nin’s breakfast,” Hala said excitedly and ran to the serving area.
“Welcome back, Nin,” Jalia said giving the boy a warm smile.
Nin winced as he sat and then again as he leaned backwards. “The Captain said I could join the passengers for meals.”
Jalia and Daniel waited until Hala brought the children’s food before they began to eat again.
“Hala told me you asked why the Keeper is called the Keeper,” Nin said looking at Daniel.
“It’s all something to do with some stupid coin,” Jalia said dismissively.
Nin’s face fell as he realized Jalia had already heard the story.
“Tell me, Nin. I haven’t heard a thing about it,” Daniel prompted.
“It’s the most valuable object in Wegnar,” Nin began eagerly. “If it ever gets
stolen, all the important people better run for the hills before the working folk kill them.”
“Surely that can’t be true?” Jalia asked, a glimmer appearing in her eyes.
“It is,” Nin insisted. “The Keeper is so scared of rumors that the coin has been stolen that he allows viewings of it every day in the vaults, to prove to the populace that it’s still there.”
“But it’s only a gold coin with some glowing jewels in it,” Jalia protested half-heartedly.
“It must be easy to steal if the people can see it every day,” Daniel said at the same time.
“It’s the magic totem of this town. The populace believe they are doomed if it leaves Wegnar. They would accuse the rich people of stealing it and lynch them if it vanished,” Nin said, answering Jalia’s question.
He turned to Daniel. “The coin is protected behind a magic shield that can kill fairies and detect weapons. One of the crew once took a knife in his boot when he went to look at it and the alarms went off as soon as he entered the stone circle. They locked him up for over a week and he missed the Steam Dragon’s sailing. The Captain said the next person who did anything so stupid again would be put over the barrel.”
“Who needs a weapon in your hands when you’re facing a bunch of village guards,” Jalia said contemptuously.
“The guards are experienced mercenaries and they take the job seriously. No one could steal the Five Gem Coin from the vault, no one.”
“Of course not,” Jalia muttered, but from that moment her mind was made up. She would steal the coin and get revenge on the men in the club. Better yet, she might get that crooked Keeper strung up. The whole thing got better and better the more she thought about it.
“I believe that anyone can go and see it at noon each day?” Jalia asked.
“I have, it’s in the courtyard in the center of the palace, deep underground in the vaults.”
“Are you thinking of going to look?” Daniel asked. A shiver of apprehension ran down his spine.
“Of course not, Daniel,” Jalia said quickly and changed the subject. “What were you doing last night? You got back quite some time after me.”
“I was looking after the horses and donkeys at a field the Boat Company owns,” Daniel replied, feeling a little flustered by the question.
Jalia sensed it would be worth her while to enquire further.
“You were on your own, I take it?”
“Well yes, at first. Then Don and Cara turned up with their horses and so I sorted their horses out.”
“With Cara and Don?”
“Well, Don left and Cara stayed to help…”
“Really Daniel,” Jalia said in a pained voice. “You spent most of the night alone with Cara and yet you spend the morning questioning my behavior. That’s it, I am going out and I don’t want to see you again for the rest of the day.”
Jalia hurried from the room, pleased that she had found a reason to be mad with Daniel. It would leave her free to carry out her plan.
“Did you do naughty things with Cara?” Hala asked Daniel, her eyes wide.
“Of course not,” Daniel said, his face flushing a little.
“You did, didn’t you?”
“No I didn’t!” Daniel said equally firmly. “But I did teach her something, if you really must know.”
Jalia went straight to their cabin. She decided to leave her weapons aboard the Steam Dragon as she couldn’t get them passed the magic circle. She stripped off the sword harness from her back and then, more reluctantly, removed the knife from her belt and the other from its sheath in her boot.
She needed to hide her weapons in a place that Daniel would not think to look. That was not going to be straightforward as the boy possessed a devious mind when he was in the mood. Remembering Gally Sorn’s note under her mattress gave Jalia inspiration and she carefully lined her weapons up under the mattress of her bunk before pressing it firmly down on them.
“Daniel would never, ever, expect me to hide something under a mattress,” Jalia told the room. “He knows I would be mortified if he ever found out that I hid anything in such an obvious place.”
Jalia felt she needed to wear a disguise, given that Tib Prentice had looked more than a little annoyed with her the night before and she was heading for his palace. She chose a black cloak. It had a deep hood she could hide inside. Pulling up the hood and wrapping the cloak around her, she hurried out of the cabin. It was nearly eleven o’clock and she needed to reach the Keeper’s Palace before noon.
Rak Tellis was a thickset man who wore loud colored and over-embroidered clothes. He had the kind of booming voice that made him a natural for a life on the stage or as a Town Crier. As a matter of fact, he had performed in both roles in his time, but as he approached middle age he had looked around for something to do that was a little less stressful.
What he found was a job he considered perfect. He had been the tour guide for the Five Gen Coin for nearly six years now and he loved it. Tib Prentice would let anyone who wanted visit the Coin. He charged a bit for the tour, which was a sixteenth of a gold coin and enough people visited each day to keep Rak successfully employed and Tib Prentice happy.
Tib was the first Keeper to think of charging the people for the privilege of seeing their most valued possession. He gave discounts to the poor and elderly and even offered tickets that lasted a whole year. This quieted his critics though many in the town regarded him as a tight-fisted man.
“Gather closely,” Rak said to the sixteen or so visitors that had come to the gate. Most of them were regulars, but he noted a woman hidden in a black cloak among the new people. Rak liked to put on a good show, and those who had been to visit many times expected him to follow his script. It had become a ritual. If he didn’t get it word perfect they were likely to heckle him or even shout out the lines he had dared to get wrong.
“What you are about to see is one of the wonders of the ancient world created by men in the days when humans could use magic. Wegnar was chosen by the Magician Kings to be the repository for an awesome magical force. That was so long ago that no one knows what the true purpose of the Five Gem Coin might be.”
“Suffice it to say that the Magician Kings did not trust the safety of the Five Gem Coin to the frailty of a mere Keeper. They constructed the vault we are about to enter and then surrounded the vault with a ring of red stone.”
Rak paused for both breath and dramatic effect. His regulars were hanging on his every word, though he noted that the black cloaked woman was looking around impatiently.
“The ring of red, kills the Fairie dead. That is what our children learn at their mother’s knee and you can hear them singing it in the streets to this day. A magic circle of lustrous stone; it warns of smuggled weapons and will kill the dread Fairie of legend, stone cold dead.”
“History tells us that during the war with the Fairie. No less than four were found dead within the circle. Small they were, less than a foot tall and with transparent wings on their backs that shone with the colors of the rainbow. They say there was not a mark on them and they looked as though they were sleeping.”
“I will point out their graves as we pass them. The Keeper of the time wished to avoid bringing down the wrath of the Empress Clea upon us and gave them a decent burial.”
“They say the greatest prophet that ever lived came to this place eight hundred years ago.” The audience gasped at this point as they always did. Nobody much believed in fairies anymore, but all of his audience knew of the prophet, Jer a’Dall.
“They say he saw all the futures that might be and all that had happened back to the dawn of time. Some claimed that he saw them all at once and that his gift drove him mad. What we do know for certain is what he told Keeper Daken the Twelfth all those years ago.”
“When the coin is stolen,
The Keeper will be broken,
The chaos that will bring
Heralds the return of the High King.”
Rak intoned the words
solemnly and many in the crowd spoke the words along with him as if in prayer.
“We believe this prophesy to mean that the loss of the coin will bring about the end of the world. To be a High King would need a human magician and they are all long dead. Only when the dead rise from their cold graves could the High King of old return. That is why each Keeper guards the coin so carefully and why we townsfolk watch over the Keeper to make sure he does his job.”
A few cries of “Hear, hear,” greeted this remark.
“Before I take you into the vault, I shall explain how it is constructed and what steps our Keeper takes to protect it. The vault is thirty feet below ground and was carved from solid rock. After we have crossed the Ring of Red, we enter the first level of the vault. This is twenty feet down into the rock. Light enters the room through crystal pipes which I will tell you about later.”
“The outer door to that room is two foot thick and it is always kept locked. It swings open and closed on great hinges made of a metal we have lost the making of. Many small holes cut through the rock provide air and allow the guards inside to hear what is happening beyond it. Two guards stand watch on the outside of the vault and will warn those inside if they are attacked.”
“From the first level there are steps leading down to the Coin Level. The vault is lit by crystal pipes that direct sunlight from outside. The pipes are made of a solid unbreakable crystal in the form of five sided tubes that bounce sunlight through them.”
“The maze can best be described as four concentric squares. Each set one inside the other. Going beyond the doors to each square reveals corridors going right and left forming a path completely around the inner square. When traversed, these corridors lead to an inner door, which is located on the farthest side. Inside the fourth square is the Coin Room. This room is not lit by crystal pipes, but by the Five Gem Coin itself, which glows red from the magical rubies set within it.”
“Now let us walk the path to the vault, but can I warn any strangers among us that should you be of Fairie kind you best turn back now before you walk to your doom.”
