Some of the merchants feared that the protection collectors would simply demand more, yet it seemed that whoever was behind the scheme realized that he could not get blood from stone, and so he left them alone. In desperation, though, the protection collectors began hitting up the very smallest of stores, ones they had never bothered before, and that was how Lady Jane had come to lose five silvers to the brutes.
The buccen were incensed, and over the next few days they set their small gang out to follow the trail of that particular collector, and it led to a manor occupied by one of the leading lights of Rivers End: Largo Rackburn, a man of means, though no one seemed to know how he had come about his wealth.
Pipper and Binkton and their urchins set watch on the Rackburn house, and they noted as collector after collector brought their loot to the place, Tark and Queeker among them.
It came to the attention of one of the lads that Lily Francine, an actress at the Rivers End Theater, was a favorite of Largo’s, and he went without fail to every opening performance when Lily had the leading role.
“I thin’ it be his child, Pip,” said Tope, wiping his nose against his sleeve. “That’r she be his sweetie.”
“And when will she be opening?” asked Binkton.
“In a sennight,” said Tope.
“Then we’ve a sevenday to make our plans,” said Pipper.
“Well, you’re the acrobat,” said Binkton, “so it’s up to you to spot a way in.”
“Right,” said Pipper. Then he turned to Cricket, who had grown somewhat during the half year the buccen had known him. “Cricket, you and Weasel make certain of the date of the performance. Not that I don’t trust you, Tope, but we’ve got to be sure, and since you’ve been there before, I wouldn’t want anyone to think you’ve been snooping about.”
Tope nodded and again wiped his nose against his sleeve and said, “ ’At’s all ri’, Cap’n. I ain’t ’ffended.”
And so it was that Pipper began in earnest watching and recording the comings and goings at the Rackburn house, and of the back wall and the balcony at the rear of the manor, and of the guards within. And by spying from a wall where he could see through the back windows, he noted what looked to be Rackburn’s office. It was the most likely place for a strongbox, and it could be reached from the balcony. The spikes atop the back wall would pose little or no hindrance to the buccen. And the window to the room would prove to be no bar to Binkton’s skills.
Pipper’s plan was simplicity itself. Over the wall, across the yard, a padded grapnel to the balcony, up the rope, through the window, and to the strongbox. But if they couldn’t get in through the window, there was always the balcony door.
On opening night at the Rivers End Theater, Pipper and Binkton watched as Largo Rackburn stepped into the carriage to go.
“Now’s ours to do,” said Binkton. “Let’s get back Lady Jane’s money.”
“Right,” said Pipper, and he and his cousin slipped to the back wall. As Pipper padded the grapnel, Binkton stealthily climbed to the top of the wall, only to discover several large dogs patrolling the yard.
35
Jade Carving
ELVENSHIP
MID SPRING, 6E8,
TO LATE SPRING, 6E9
The message awaiting Aylis at Port Arbalin was written in Queen Dresha’s own fine hand:
My dear Aylis:
Some two years past, I received the gift of a small chest of black lacquerware decorated with exotic designs in gold leaf of Jingarian Dragons and landscapes and other such. It originally came from Janjong, to be exact. It is quite a lovely piece, and it would please us most dearly if you would fetch a variety of black lacquerware-bowls, chests, vases, and the like, whatever might strike your fancy-of similar design the next time you and your Captain Aravan are at that port city.
With Our warmest regards,
Dresha,
Queen of Mithgar
And so it was that in the spring of 6E8, Aravan set sail for Jinga to purchase lacquerware-bowls, chests, vases, and the like-as well as a cargo of fine porcelain.
They docked in Janjong, the principal port city of that realm. And even as the Elvenship tied up at the pier, peddlers and merchants selling their wares crowded the wharf, calling out to the crew of the Eroean to come and look at their goods.
When Aylis decided to look for lacquerware as well as to explore the city, Lissa hid in the hood of her cloak, for she would see the city, too. Vex obediently trotted at Aylis’s side, a very light leash ’round her neck-more of a string than a lead-the fox finally submitting to Lissa’s commands to be ignominiously led by such.
And even as they embarked, the hawkers rushed forward, and then shied back, not only at the sight of the fox, but also at the pair of armed and armored Dwarves escorting this person and her familiar, for surely with such unusual guardians and a wild fox attendant she must be a nyuwu , a witch.
Yet one young man braved the escort of fox and fierce Dwarves, and he stepped discreetly to one side of the path and said, “I have been waiting for you, Lady Fox, for I had a dream you would come, and you must see what my father has carved.”
Aylis laughed. “A dream, you say?”
“Oh, yes, oh, yes. In my dream I saw a great ship arrive, and you stepped from it, though in my dream you had no fox.”
Again Aylis laughed, for she had never before had a hawker tell such a tale. “And this carving is. .?”
“Jade, my lady. Jade. The finest of gemstone, and carved by Master Luong, my father. You must come and see.”
“Let’s go look,” whispered Lissa in Aylis’s ear.
“I must admit, I am intrigued,” said Aylis, replying more to Lissa than the youth.
And so “Lady Fox” followed the young man through the streets of Janjong, the merchant heading for his shop, the two Chakka trailing not far behind, their gazes ever on the alert for dangers that might threaten their charge.
And Aylis was led to a stall where the young man, Huang by name, showed her a carving of a jade tower. It was not the tower itself that arrested her curiosity, even though it somewhat resembled the Seers’ Tower at the College of Mages; nay, rather it was the inscription in a strange tongue etched around the base of the figurine. With an arcane word muttered under her breath she read:
Thrice I dreamt the dream
The City of Jade I fled
Nought but shades now dwell
It was a particular form of Ryodoan poetry, yet not of Ryodo was this work. It was instead carved by a Jingarian jade master, or so said Huang, who again proclaimed it was his own sire, Luong. Aylis bought the statuette, but only under the condition that she meet the artist. The young man gave her directions to a dwelling where he and his wife and his father lived, but he warned her that Master Luong was a recluse. Undaunted, Aylis took the jade carving and hailed a jinricksha. The man who pulled the vehicle seemed both surprised and honored as well as awed to have Lady Fox as his passenger, for the word of the witch and her familiar had spread across the neighborhood. And he set off at a brisk pace toward the address given.
Behind her, two Dwarves scrambled into a jinricksha of their own and followed after.
It was the very fact that a lady and a fox came to call upon Luong that the jade master deigned to see this curiosity for himself.
Dressed in silks and soft sandals, he was a man of about sixty years, his hair and beard white and long, his eyes so dark as to nearly be black. When Aylis told him that she had come seeking knowledge about the statuette, he was amazed that she, a foreigner, spoke such flawless Jingarian.
[It did come to me in a dream,] said Luong, as soon as they had settled down upon tatamis, a small tea table between, a steaming pot of tea thereon. As he poured two cups of the pale drink, Luong said, [I don’t know what it means. Not only that, but I suspect it is a form of poetry, one that I have never seen before.]
[It is Ryodoan,] said Aylis. [A strange form that never deviates from its syllabic count-five, seven, five, you see.
]
[Ryodoan it may be, but it is not in that language, for I would know; written Ryodoan and Jingarian are much alike. Regardless, do you know what it says?]
[You don’t know?]
[It is not in any language I have.]
[It is strange that you would carve it, then,] said Aylis.
[Yet carve it I did, even though I know not its meaning. As I said, it came in a dream, and I felt compelled to set it in jade.] Luong then turned up a hand toward the statuette, and he looked at Aylis in anticipation.
[These are its words,] said Aylis.
[Thrice I dreamt the dream
From the City of Jade I fled
Nought but shades now dwell.]
[Oh, how mysterious,] said Luong. [Not words that I would choose to carve, nor a dream I would choose to dream, I think.]
[Only sometimes can we choose our dreams,] said Aylis, harkening back to the time she and Jinnarin had learned to dreamwalk. Aylis sipped her drink and added, [Perhaps it was a sending.]
[Sending? Sending? What are these sendings? Are they dangerous? My son Huang had a dream as well.]
[He did?]
Luong nodded. [He said a lady from a great ship would like to see my carving. He said nothing of a fox.]
Aylis nodded. [That’s what he told me.] She laughed. [I thought it but a ruse to get me to see this beautiful jade figurine.]
[No, his was a dream, as was mine. Yet you call them ‘sendings.’ What are they?]
[A message from someone else-a spirit, a lost soul, a Mage-someone who fled the City of Jade. If so, then it is something I cannot trace back, for finding the source of dreams is beyond my ken.]
Luong’s eyes widened. [You are one who can do ‹chiji›?]
Aylis laughed and shook her head. [I have only a bit of ‹yanli›.]
[Then how is it you can read those words?]
In that moment Aylis’s hood sneezed, or so it seemed. Luong reared back, concern on his features.
“Oh, well,” said Lissa, stepping from the hood and onto Aylis’s shoulder. “I gave myself away. Besides, I’d like some tea, too.”
Luong’s mouth fell agape. [I-I. . I cannot believe my eyes.] And he backed away and prostrated himself before the two. [Forgive me, mistress, I did not know you had such ‹nengli›. . such power.]
It took some coaxing for Aylis to get the man back onto his tatami. And when she said that Lissa would like some tea as well, Luong did not call his servants, but rushed out to get a vessel himself. Moments later he was back with a porcelain thimble, and with trembling hands he poured a bit of tea into the improvised cup and proffered it to Lissa, who now sat atop the small table.
In that moment Aylis frowned, and she spoke a word and looked at the figurine. Then she sighed and said to Lissa, “There has been no casting, for it contains no ‹power›.”
“What contains no ‹power›?” asked Lissa, looking up from her drink.
“The statuette.”
Luong looked back and forth between the two females.
[I said it contains no ‹nengli›,] said Aylis, for Luong’s benefit.
[Ah, then, so you can see power. Perhaps that is why you have such a companion and how you can read the words, eh, and mayhap as well speak such beautiful Jingarian?]
Aylis inclined her head in assent, and Luong smiled in his discernment, though his eyes yet held a glimmer of awe.
[Do you remember anything else about the dream?] asked Aylis.
[Only what I etched on the bottom, but I do not understand that either.]
Frowning, Aylis took up the statuette and looked at the bottom. Curving lines were scribed, but she had no idea what they might represent. She spoke another arcane word, yet her ‹sight› revealed nothing further.
Luong looked at Lissa and asked, [What are you called? What folk are you from?]
Lissa shrugged and looked at Aylis. “He wants to know what type creature you are.”
“Tell him I am a sprite of great power, and should he ever speak to anyone of me, I will appear in a whirling cloud and carry him away to a fiery pit of darkness, where he will burn in shadow forever.” To prove her point, blackness suddenly enveloped the Pysk.
[Wah!] exclaimed Luong, juggling his cup.
[You must never speak of her to anyone else,] said Aylis.
[No, no. I am sworn to silence.] Again he prostrated himself before the pair.
Aylis nodded toward the blot of darkness, and the shadow vanished, revealing the Pysk once more.
Once again Aylis had to persuade Luong to return to his tatami, after which they spoke for long moments, yet nothing else was forthcoming about the dream or the figurine.
Finally, Aylis and Lissa and Vex took their leave, much to Luong’s relief, for to have such persons of power in his very own chambers, well, it was all quite beyond his ability to cope. Yet it was but moments after they had left that Luong began a new jade carving. One of a very small person, or perhaps it was nothing more than a tiny statuette.
“City of Jade, eh?” Aravan looked at the small sculpted tower. “Hmm. . There is an ancient legend. One that was old when I first came to Mithgar. It tells of a city carved of jade that fell to some terrible fate. Perhaps this jade carving has something to do with that legend.”
Aravan then turned the statuette upside down and looked at the lines on the bottom. “Hmm. . This could be a map, for it resembles a coastline, yet there are thousands of places along many shores similar to this. Even so, there might be some hint of where to look in the archives of the libraries in Caer Pendwyr. If so, we will look for the City of Jade after we deliver the cargo to Queen Dresha.”
“Good,” said Lissa, taking a small sip of brandy from her thimble-sized cup. “Should we go off searching for a lost city, mayhap at last Vex and I will again have something to do to earn our keep.”
Again Aravan looked at the figurine. He glanced at Aylis and said, “Following this to wherever it leads suits me well, for, as I said, this crew is meant for adventure, seeking out legend and fable. Mayhap this statuette will take us to something rare.”
They sailed the Alacca Straits with their cargo of fine porcelain and black lacquerware decorated in gold leaf with exotic designs. And just ere reaching the jagged rocks known as the Dragon Fangs, they sank two junks and three sampans filled with Jungarian pirates who had foolishly decided to attack the Eroean ; this time the Dwarven crew on the starboard side loosed the fireballs that set the pirate ships aflame. And with falchions and axes and hammers in hand, the sailors and Dwarves grappled and winched and boarded one of the burning ships, the men shouting, Eroean! Eroean! and the Dwarves roaring, Chakka shok! Chakka cor! The pirate crew leapt into the sea rather than face the wild savages of the Elvenship.
That night they celebrated as they sailed southwestward for the distant Cape of Storms.
Southwesterly and southwesterly she sailed, but at last the Eroean came to the shoulder of the cape. And the wind had risen in strength and had risen again, and now the Elvenship beat to the windward into a shrieking gale. For though it was the height of the warm season in the south, the air chilled to frigidity and the wind shrieked in fury, as if Father Winter and Rualla raged together to show just who was master and mistress in this polar realm. Great grey waves, their crests foaming, broke over the bow and smashed down upon the decks with unnumbered tons of water, clutching and grasping at timber and wood and rope, at fittings, at sails, the huge greybeards seeking to drag off and drown whatever they could, whatever might be loose or loosened.
In the teeth of the blow Aravan again ordered all sails pulled but the stays, jibs, tops, and mains. And Men had struggled ’cross decks awash-cold, drenching waves dragging them off their feet and trying to hurl them overboard and into the icy brine; yet the safety lines held fast, and the crew made their way up into the rigging, the frigid wind tearing at them, shrieking and threatening to hurl them away. But the Men fought the elements, haling in the silken sail and lashing it ’round the yard
arms and spars, while all about them the halyards howled in the wind like giant harp strings yowling in torment, sawn by the screaming gale.
On the very next watch the wind force increased, and once again the crew was dispatched onto the dangerous decks and up to the hazardous spars, this time at Nikolai’s command, and all jibs were pulled and the mains reefed to the last star. And now the ship ran mostly on the staysails and the upper and lower topsails, the Eroean flying less than a third of full silk.
The following watch Aravan took command, and after an hour or so, the wind picked up yet again, and the Elven captain ordered forth the crew to reef the mains and the crossjack to the full.
“ Diabolos, Kapitan,” shouted Nikolai above the wind, “I t’ink if this keep up, soon we be sailing on yards alone.”
Aravan grinned at the second officer. “Mayhap, Nikolai. Mayhap. But if it’s to bare sticks we go, then backwards we will fare.”
Even though the galley was locked down for the heavy seas, its fire extinguished, still Nelon, ship’s cook, managed to brew tea, and Noddy made his way up through the trapdoor and into the small wheelhouse, the lad bearing a tray of steaming mugs. That he managed to carry the cups in the pitching ship without spilling a drop spoke well of his agility and balance. With a grin he passed the tray about to Aravan and Fat Jim and Nikolai, then disappeared belowdecks once more.
As Aravan sipped his tea, he wiped the condensation from the window and peered at the raging sea. “Vash! Here comes a wall.” Aravan quickly set his cup to the holder and called, “Pipe the crew on deck, Nikolai; we’ll need to change course.” And he took a grip on the wheel on one side while Fat Jim held the spokes across. “Prepare to come about. On the starboard bow quarter this tack.”
At the moment Nikolai opened the trap to go below and summon the crew, a blinding hurl of white engulfed the Eroean , the Cape of Storms living up to its name as wind-driven snow slammed horizontally across the Elvenship.
A sevenday plus two it took to round the cape, sometimes the Eroean seemingly driven abaft while at other times she surged ahead. And at all times the savage wind tore at her, while the greybeards struggled to wrench her down. Snow and ice weighed heavily on her rigging, and Men and Dwarves were sent aloft to break loose the pulleys so the ropes would run free. Tacking northwest up across the wind and southwest back down, Aravan sailed by dead reckoning, for no stars nor moon in the short nights did he see, nor sun in the long days. Nor did he see the southern aurora writhing far beyond the darkness above, shifting curtains of spectral light draped high in the icy skies, as if a strange wind blew out from the sun to illumine the polar nights.
City of Jade Page 24
