by Ian Irvine
The channel took a dog-leg to the left. Half a league away, partly hidden by a trio of rocky islands, was the city, a multicolored smudge against the rugged hills that squeezed it into the water. They passed between the islands, turned west again and crossed from the deep blue water of Port Cardasson into the shallow muddy expanse of Thurkad Cove.
Llian gaped. “In all my travels I’ve never seen such a city. They must have cut down a forest to build it.”
“Nor smelt one, eh!” said Pender, covering his nose. The wind from the north carried an intense odor of rotting fish, and other things besides.
Karan, who seemed almost back to normal today, said, “It has always been an unhappy place for me.”
Thurkad was not the greatest city in Meldorin, but it was by far the oldest, an old city even by the time of Shuthdar. The shore was covered in a vast concretion of wharves, warehouses and jetties that were built out over the water on mighty piles, blackened and tarry, three and four and even five storeys high. The structures extended out into the water for as much as a thousand paces, and ran the best part of a league around the cove. Some parts were upright, some leaning, and some had floors tilted and awash; braced cross-ways with beams the size of tree trunks or bound with black iron bands. The whole great structure was slowly subsiding into the mud and peat, yet each part had its precariously perched higher storeys. This was the wharf city of the Hlune, the robed folk who controlled all seaborne commerce n and out of Thurkad.
“The sea rises,” said Karan, “and the land subsides. They forever build on top of the old. The ancient part of the city s like an iceberg; most of it now lies below the water.”
The bay was busy with water traffic—rafts of logs brought down the River Saboth all the way from the mountains; barges bearing sacks of grain, barrels of salted fish, pickled vegetables, wine or oil; ferries running to the villages on the south side of the port and the roads beyond. They skipped in and out of the streaming traffic and drew up to a massive wharf platform. The water had an oily gleam. Patches of yellow scum clung to the piles.
They climbed a series of ladders built for giants and stood on the black decking. The wharf city was vast and in ruinous condition—warped, rotting and pocked with jagged holes where part of the understructure had collapsed. Some of these voids were partly covered with loose planking but the majority yawned open, a trap for anyone who walked inattentively.
Pender found an official, paid the handover fee and checked the receipt carefully. Without it his boat would have disappeared in a moment.
Karan hesitated at the edge of the wharf until Llian, who was walking slightly ahead, came back and took her hand. Halfway across they passed by one of the holes in the deck, a long, narrow tear like a crevasse, evidently where one of the foundation piles had rotted away and carried everything with it. Within the crater the maze of crazily tilted timber made a honeycomb of black, slimy cells. The sullen water could be seen far below, and a stale odor of seaweed and decay drifted up.
A movement caught Llian’s eye, then another. A thin, grimy face was staring up at him. Lots of faces. There were people living down there, crawling along beams, hauling on green ropes that trailed down into the water. He pointed them out to Karan.
“There are too many people here, and not enough land,” she responded with a shudder. “No space is wasted. Let us get out of this damnable place; it gives me nightmares to feel it beneath me.”
Karan shouldered her pack and hurried toward the western hills and the towers of the old city. At last they reached the shore, stepping off the age-stained deck onto the steep streets. They were narrow and paved with bricks of dark blue, flecked with black. The buildings were grimy stone. They settled themselves in one of the many inns that lined the edge of the wharf. Pender saw them to their door and disappeared.
Karan called for tea and, after it came, sat down on the floor in front of Llian.
“We should not have come here,” she said, pouring the tea from a brazen urn with a compartment at the base containing heated stones.
‘There was nowhere else to go.”
“We haven’t left my enemies behind; we’ve caught up to them.”
“Who then? Who are you afraid of? Is it Mendark?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I’m afraid to use my talent.” She looked around her as though the walls were closing in.
Llian inspected his tea. It was rich red in the white bowl, but with globules of liquid butter on the surface which he spooned out carefully. It wasn’t that he minded butter in the tea; many places in the north had that custom. This butter was more gray than yellow though, and it smelled rancid.
Karan clasped her hands around her bowl and put her head down so that the steam drifted over her face. The fragrant vapor seemed to give her some heart.
“It seems I must rely on your friend, Mendark. You’d better go and fetch him.”
The melancholy and submissiveness in her voice grieved Llian. “I wouldn’t call him a friend,” he said. He was almost as apprehensive as she was about the meeting. “All right, I’ll go. Will you be safe here?”
“I’ll bar the door and sleep,” she said. “Go. Hurry!”
It was after noon when he emerged on the street below. The wind carried the stench of the wharves to him. He looked around. A narrow promenade, cluttered with the tables of many outdoor cafe’s, stretched along the wharfside. Uphill the streets of the city formed a maze in all directions. But Mendark was Magister; anyone would know where the Magister dwelt.
The first two people he spoke to brushed by without answering, but the third, an urchin of the streets, a grubby, thin child who looked about nine or ten, with scabs on both her knees, directed him to the citadel. The few coppers he put in her tiny hand were evidently a vast overpayment, for she gave him the most beaming white smile, looked around to be sure that no one was watching—no one was, as far as Llian could tell—palmed the fortune and skipped away. The citadel was a complex of towers on the hill above. Llian had noted them earlier from the boat.
He took a street that seemed to wander in the right direction, but in the labyrinthine alleys and roofed passages of the old city he continually lost his way. Once or twice he had noticed the child behind him. Now, just when he decided to hire her to be his guide, she was no longer there.
The gates of the citadel turned out to be almost an hour away. They stood open but four guards, arrayed in scarlet and blue, belts and boots shining, stood in a slanting spray of sunlight at the entrance. They moved to bar his way with their pikes.
“What is your business in the citadel, ruffian?” asked the foremost, and Llian wished he’d had the foresight to buy clean clothes, to wash, to shave.
He caught the gaze of the fellow and said determinedly, “I am Llian of Chanthed. I bear a message from Wistan, Master of Chanthed, to Mendark, Magister of the High Council of Thurkad. I beg admittance at once.”
One of the guardsmen standing behind smirked and said something to his fellow, whereupon they both brayed with laughter. Their leader frowned and cautioned them in a low voice. They fell silent, but the broad smiles remained on their faces. He turned back to Llian.
“You will, of course, bear a token from Lord Wistan in earnest of your trust?”
Llian raised his hands, palm upwards. “Alas, I was beset by robbers; the token was taken,” he lied.
The man’s expression changed. “I know of no Magister bearing the name of Mendark,” he said with a sly grin, rubbing his jaw. There came another burst of laughter, muffled this time, from behind. “Are you sure you have the right name, or even the right city? The bog dwellers of Chanthed are slow of wit, I am told.”
Llian flushed. “It is you who are fools,” he said angrily. “My errand is urgent. I will not be kept waiting by idiots. Admit me at once.”
The smiles disappeared and the pikes swung upwards. “If you are who you say, which I doubt,” sneered the captain, prodding him in the chest with the tip of his pike, “I wa
rn you to step carefully. The name of Mendark is no longer a passport into the citadel. The traitor has been cast out and banished from old Thurkad.”
Llian fell back a pace. “But… When? How? I’ve h-heard nothing of this,” he stammered.
“The news is old. The whole of the civilized world knows of it. Soon it may even reach Chanthed.” There was another burst of raucous laughter.
“Where can he be found? Mendark is still alive?”
“It is said that he dwells in Masande, by the water. That place has always had an uncanny stench to it. It is time we put it to the torch, and its vermin. Take care that you aren’t there when we come for him.”
Masande! Llian had no idea where that was, or even if it was a part of Thurkad. He walked down the hill a little way, until he was out of sight of the guards, and sat down on a stone wall beside the road. Each time someone came past he stood up and in his politest tones asked the way to Masande, to the dwelling of Mendark. No one answered him. The mere mention of Mendark’s name was enough to turn them away. He walked slowly back down the hill, wondering what to do. Suddenly the child was beside him again, though he had not seen her coming. He supposed such skills were necessary for survival on the streets of Thurkad.
“Where does you want to go?” she asked in a squeaky voice as thin as her grubby legs. Her accent made “where” sound like “wir” and “want” as “warnt”. “I can guide you.”
“Masande.”
“You want to go Masarnde?” She said something unintelligible, then, “Why does you want to go there?”
“That is my business. Do you know where it is? I will pay well.” As soon as he said that he realized his mistake. Now he would pay ten times the price. Well, he still had coin, and it wasn’t important enough to argue about.
“I know it. I will take you.” She looked over her shoulder. “But not from here. Go down the hill. I will find you.” She disappeared again.
Llian presumed that by “down the hill” she meant the wharf-front promenade where they had met before. For want of any other alternative he did as she said, and the moment he stepped onto the paving she appeared out of an alley crowded with stalls selling the meanest, weediest, moldiest and most diseased vegetables possible. He looked at her more carefully this time; such children were often in the employ of rogues.
She was one of the shabbiest little urchins that he had ever seen. She wore a dun coat, a scruffy, ragged thing with the pockets torn off, all moth-eaten and rotten as though it had spent the summer drifting in the harbor. Through the holes in the coat could be seen a ragged shirt, so large that it must have been cast off by an adult, and loose trousers of the same color torn off above the knee. None of the garments looked as if they had ever been washed. Her pale hair was relatively clean, though it had been hacked off at shoulder height with a knife. She had a long narrow face for a child, a long sharp nose and a pointed chin. The hazel eyes were large and a little too guileless for someone who lived on the street. Her legs and bare feet were spattered with mud but her hands were clean enough. Such was the somewhat contradictory picture before him.
He had to think. It would be dark in a few hours. He sat down at a caf6 table on the promenade and shouted for tea. The girl stood watching. “What is your name, child?”
“Lilis.”
“Lilis. What would you like to drink, Lilis. Are you hungry?”
She looked very wary. Why would anyone buy her lunch? She checked him over in much the same way as he had examined her. He seemed worried, and tired, and there were deep shadows under his eyes. His clothes were worn, travel-stained and crusted with salt. But he did not look like someone she need be afraid of, and his voice was so warm and kind she could not but like him. She was also very hungry. She’d not eaten today, though the three coppers would each buy scraps enough for a week, if she could keep them secret.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely, “I’m hungry.”
She sat down as far from him as possible.
What did children like? Llian had no idea, but it was cold and windy, so he ordered bowls of thick soup and when that was gone, and she had wiped the bowl clean with the bread, and he was sipping his buttery herb tea, he bought her a mug of sickeningly sweet hot chocolate. That was a delight that she had never experienced. She sipped the chocolate, lingering over every tiny mouthful, alternately looking down at the cup and up at him.
“Now, we go to Masande.”
She jumped up at once, bowed her thanks and led him quickly, though by a roundabout route, and with much looking behind them, to a southern suburb on a rocky promontory running down to the sea.
She asked him, “What does you do?” and on the way he told her about being a teller, and the library at Chanthed, and even a minor tale fit for a child, and so the journey went quickly and pleasantly enough. Lilis listened in silence the whole way, looking up at him and down at the street, and be fore them and behind, that being the responsibility of the guide. Once, in a dark place, when his story was at its most tense, and the heroine in the most grave peril, her cold hand clutched his and held it until they came out of the alley under a bright street lamp.
It was fully dark and light rain was falling by then. Masande turned out to be an old quarter of the city, though grown up outside the original walls, and made of two parts—the old stone town on the ridge, and the new town built against the edge of the great wharf.
Mendark’s refuge was a villa set on a rocky knob that fell steeply to the harbor. The villa was surrounded by a high wall of gray basalt that was broken in places. There were piles of cut stone on the ground and signs of hasty repairs. A tall iron gate stood ajar. Llian pushed and it gave with a rusty squeal. The guard post was empty, though a fire burned there. A large, squat house stood in the middle of an untidy lawn starred with small white and blue flowers. In an angle of the wall, seven slender stone towers overlooked the harbor, some little taller than the house, others soaring more than twenty spans into the air, and each surmounted by a dome of metal leaves from which the lights of the city further up the hill glinted.
Llian pulled his hood down against the rain, walked quickly toward the door of the house and pounded on it. An answering shout came from inside, and shortly the door was opened by a tall woman who regarded him coolly.
“I’m Llian of Chanthed. I’ve come seeking aid. Is Mendark within?” The words tumbled out all in a rush, his composure giving way under her impassive gaze.
The woman looked him over carefully, glanced at Lilis waiting in the background, then held out her hand.
“I bid you welcome. Long have we sought you. Come within,” she said. “My name is Tallia.”
Llian gestured Lilis over, suddenly realizing that he should have agreed her fee beforehand. He took a silver tar out of his pocket and held it out with a smile. “Thank you, Lilis.”
The light from the doorway was full on her face. She did not smile. How she lusted for that coin, more than anything she had ever wanted. She shook her head, and her eyes shone.
“You have paid already,” she squeaked, and though he continued to hold out the coin, and she to covet it, she walked away.
Llian watched until she disappeared, then he turned back to Tallia.
Tallia had been observing in some amazement. She was thinking back to her conversation with Shand about Llian, in Tullin months ago. Indeed Llian must have had something special, to so charm a street urchin that she would refuse a tar. You could buy a life for that in Thurkad. And the thought reminded her of something else. Shand too had been coming to Thurkad. He had not yet appeared.
“The price of a guide such as her is a quarter grint by the day, and you must watch your back. It seems you’ve found the only honest one in Thurkad. You will never be rid of her.”
“I could use an honest friend,” said Llian, shaking Tallia’s warm, strong hand. She led the way down a bare hall and up a flight of stairs, holding the lantern aloft. “Mendark will be glad of your news, if it is good. We have had many s
etbacks.”
They came at last to an open doorway at the end of another long corridor and passed through into a large rectangular room lit by three oil lamps suspended from the high ceiling. A hearty fire blazed in the far end of the room. The dark paneled walls were empty, save for a threadbare tapes try of a hunting scene in a forest—a hunter about to be gored by a boar. Two leather armchairs were drawn up in front of the fire.
“It is Llian,” announced Tallia from the doorway. There was a rustle of papers from the chair nearest the fire, then Mendark stood up and advanced toward him, arms out stretched and a smile on his face. They embraced, then Mendark stepped back a pace, his hand still on Llian’s shoulder.
“Llian! What a delight it is to see you. It must be five years since we traveled to Zile together. It might have been yesterday, for all the difference there is in you.”
The greeting was rather more fulsome than Llian had expected. Mendark had been spying on him five years ago, he recollected. Don’t rely on what he says, but watch every thing he does.
Llian examined his sponsor. He saw a man seemingly of late middle age, with straight brown hair cut directly across at shoulder length, a thick nose, deep blue eyes and a full mouth with laughter wrinkles at the corners. Mendark’s eye brows and beard were almost black, flecked with gray. His face and hands were weatherbeaten and he wore heavy cream-colored woolen trousers, over high boots, and a brown wool shirt.
“The years have touched you lightly as well,” said Llian, though he saw that the hair was thin and lank, the laughter wrinkles overlaid by a downcurling of the mouth, and there was a wary, weary look in the eyes, as though Mendark had expended almost all there was of himself.
