“You are good, Althalus,” Ghend said admiringly. “You’ve got an excellent eye for details. When this is all over, we might want to talk again. I might just have a business proposition for you—but let’s rob Gosti first, shall we?”
“One thing at a time, certainly. All right, have you got gold enough to buy your way across that bridge?”
“I’ve got plenty,” Ghend replied. “Do you need some?” The question was slyly put.
“And if I happened to say ‘yes,’ our partnership would end right here, wouldn’t it?”
“Probably, yes.”
“That went by real quick, didn’t it?” Gher said to Khnom.
“If we’d blinked, we’d have missed it,” Khnom agreed. “We’re dealing with a pair of masters here, my boy. We can tenlike we don’t know it, but we’d better keep our eyes open.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Gher and I’ll cross Gosti’s bridge a day or so after you and Khnom do,” Althalus continued. “And we’ll keep away from you when we get to Gosti’s place. Have you noticed my tunic?”
“How could I miss it?” Ghend replied.
“Most of the time, I’ll just leave the hood pushed back. If I pull it up and you can see the wolf ears sticking out, it means that I need to talk to you, all right?”
Ghend nodded. “And I’ll use my bronze helmet the same way. Most of the time, it’ll be hanging on my belt. If I’ve got it on my head, it’ll mean that I want to talk to you.”
“This is all coming together very well,” Althalus said. “This is probably as far as we need to go for right now. We’ll need to get the lay of the land a bit before we come up with any more details. Once we know where the fat man’s strong room is and how well it’s guarded, we’ll be able to polish the details.”
“Agreed,” Ghend said shortly.
“Do we need to talk about anything else?”
“I think that covers it,” Ghend said.
“All right, then,” Althalus said. “You two had better get moving. We’ll see you again in Gosti’s fort.”
“Only we’ll tenlike we never laid eyes on each other before,” Khnom said, grinning broadly at Gher.
“He learns quick, don’t he?” Gher said to Althalus. “Maybe if we steal enough gold, I’ll be able to buy him and teach him the business.”
That startled even Althalus.
“Don’t get worried none, Althalus,” Gher said with an impudent grin. “You’re still the best. I probably won’t get to be better than you are for at least another month or two—maybe even as long as three.”
Ghend was laughing as he and Khnom mounted their horses and rode out of the grove toward the north.
C H A P T E R F O R T Y - T H R E E
It definitely goes against my grain, Ghend,” Khnom was saying to his confederate as Althalus and the others stood at the window watching the pair riding north toward the lands of Gosti’s clan. “Do we have to let that grubby thief get away with half of the gold?”
“We need him, Khnom,” Ghend replied, “Unless you want to go to the House of Deiwos and steal his Book.”
“Not very likely,” Khnom said, shuddering. “I’ve heard a few stories about what Dweia does to people who annoy her, and they make swimming in boiling pitch sound pleasant by comparison.” Then Khnom squinted slyly sideways at Ghend. “What about after he’s stolen the Book for us? We won’t need him anymore then, so we could cut his throat and take his share of the gold we steal from Gosti, couldn’t we? Once he’s delivered the Book, we’re done with him.”
Ghend laughed sardonically. “You have no loyalties whatsoever, do you, Khnom?”
“Not when they get in my way,” Khnom admitted. “I like gold, Ghend, and I won’t stop until it’s all mine.”
“Except for my share,” Ghend told him. “You weren’t planning to steal mine, were you?”
“Of course not,” Khnom replied just a bit too quickly. “Althalus and that clever little boy are another matter. You and I are like brothers, but those two aren’t much more than a convenience. Their only reason for existence is to help us rob the fat man and then to go steal the Book for us. Once they’ve done that, we can dispose of them.”
“Remind me never to turn my back on you, Khnom,” Ghend said.
“You haven’t got a thing to worry about, dear brother,” Khnom declared with mock sincerity.
“Not yet, anyway,” Ghend added.
———
“They aren’t really very friendly to each other, are they?” Gher said.
“Not particularly, no,” Dweia replied. “Ghend saved Khnom’s life after he was expelled from Ledan, but gratitude’s an alien concept for Khnom. Watch him very carefully, Gher. He’s devious, sly, and completely unscrupulous; and he’s your responsibility.”
“Mine?”
“Of course. Eliar dealt with Pekhal in Wekti, Andine outwitted Gelta in Treborea, and Leitha and Bheid eliminated Argan and Koman in Perquaine. Now it’s your turn, and Khnom’s the one you’re after.”
“I don’t think he’ll give me too much trouble, Emmy,” the boy said. “The Knife told me to ‘deceive,’ didn’t it? Doesn’t that mean that I’m supposed to trick him? I already did that when I came up with the idea of the dream thing that made him and Ghend help me and Althalus rob Gosti, didn’t I? I’m already so far ahead of Khnom that he doesn’t even know which way I’m going.”
“Don’t get overconfident, Gher,” she chided. “Khnom’s more clever than he appears to be. Keep things simple. If you get too exotic, he’ll start to catch a faint odor of something that’s not quite right, and that’ll put him on his guard. He already knows how clever you are. You have to make sure that he keeps believing that you’re concentrating on tricking Gosti instead of Ghend.”
“I’ll remember that, Emmy,” Gher promised.
It was late morning two days later when Ghend and Khnom reached Gosti’s toll bridge, and they were obliged to wait while the burly toll taker was engaged in a heated argument with a would-be prospector in ragged clothes.
“What if I promise to come back and pay after I find gold?” the prospector suggested plaintively.
“Don’t be silly,” the tattooed toll taker said in a voice filled with contempt. “You pay now, or you don’t cross the bridge.”
“It’s just not fair,” the ragged man complained. “There’s all that gold up there, and you won’t let me cross the river to get my share.”
“You don’t have any money at all, do you?”
“Well, not yet, but I’ll be rich as soon as I find gold.”
“You’re just wasting my time. Stand aside and let the paying customers through.”
“I’ve got as much right to be here as they do.”
“Guards!” the toll taker shouted over his shoulder to two fur-clad men armed with bronze axes lounging nearby. “This fool’s blocking the bridge. He wants to cross the river. Why don’t you throw him in, and we’ll find out how good a swimmer he is.”
The two burly guards grinned broadly and started toward the prospector.
“I’ll tell my Clan Chief about this!” the fellow threatened, backing away. Then he turned and ran, shouting curses back over his shoulder.
“Does that happen often?” Ghend asked the tattooed man.
“All the time. You wouldn’t believe some of the promises I’ve heard. Only about one in ten has the money to cross the bridge.”
“How much?” Ghend asked shortly.
“One gold ounce apiece,” the tattooed man replied.
Ghend opened his purse almost negligently and took out two coins. “How do I go about getting in to see your Chief?” he asked. “I need to talk business with him.”
“He’s in that fort over on the other side of the river,” the toll taker replied. “Most probably in the dining hall.”
“I wouldn’t want to disturb him while he’s eating.”
“You’ll wait a long time, then. Gosti eats steadily from mor
ning to night. I wouldn’t worry about it. He can eat and listen at the same time.”
One of the guards laughed. “It’s eating and talking at the same time that gives Gosti problems,” he said. “He sprays a lot when he tries to talk, so it gets kind of messy out in front of him.”
“I’ll keep that in mind and stand back a bit,” Ghend said, and then he and Khnom made their way across the bridge.
“They don’t look the least bit like Arums,” Eliar protested. “Why aren’t they wearing kilts like real Arums do?”
“The trade routes between Arum and Wekti hadn’t been established yet,” Dweia explained.
“What’s that got to do with their clothes?”
“Kilts are made of wool, Eliar,” she replied, “and Arums aren’t very interested in raising sheep. This is happening twenty-five hundred years ago, you realize. Back then, most of the people living in the mountains wore animal-skin clothing, and their weapons were all made of bronze.”
“What a strange way to live,” Eliar said disapprovingly.
“That’s a better bridge than the old one,” Althalus observed. “A good sneeze would’ve collapsed the old bridge.”
“Was that fellow with the drawings on his skin the same one you met last time?” Gher asked.
“It’s the same man,” Althalus replied, “but he’s acting more official, now that the price has gone up.” Then he squinted at the fort across the river. “It’s bigger than it was when I came here last time. Could we get a bit closer, Em? I’d like to see just exactly what’s been modified.”
“Of course, love.”
There was a brief blur beyond the window, and Althalus found that he was looking down at Gosti’s fort from above. “They have made some changes,” he observed. “Last time, that barn at the north end was outside the walls, and the pigs were just wandering around in the courtyard. I see that they’re penned up now.”
All in all, Gosti’s fort was much more orderly than it’d been before. The main structure was now a fairly substantial log fort that overlooked the river and the toll bridge, rather than the rickety building Althalus remembered. The walled-in courtyard was lined with various workshops and animal pens. The stables were attached to the old hay barn on the north side of the court, and the smithy, tannery, and carpenter’s shed ran along the east wall from the fort to the barn. “Once we get there, we’ll have to do some exploring,” Althalus told Gher. “There are a lot of changes we’ll need to know about.”
“I’ll snoop around,” Gher said. “Nobody pays much attention to curious boys.”
“Good idea.”
“They’re taking Ghend inside the fort to meet Gosti,” Leitha told Althalus. “You might want to eavesdrop.”
“Maybe so. I don’t want Ghend getting exotic at this point.”
The ground below blurred, and Althalus found himself looking down at Gosti and his table.
“He’s grotesque!” Andine exclaimed in a voice filled with revulsion.
“They don’t call him ‘Gosti Big Belly’ for nothing, that’s for certain,” Eliar agreed.
“How can anybody that fat even move?” Andine demanded.
“He doesn’t,” Althalus told her. “He sleeps in that chair—and he usually keeps eating right through his naps.”
A fur-clad clansman with a bronze-tipped spear escorted Ghend and Khnom into the fat man’s presence. “These strangers want to talk with you, Gosti,” he announced. “They say it’s about business.”
“Show them in,” Gosti commanded, wiping his greasy hands on the front of his vast robe. “I’m always ready to talk business.”
“This one says his name’s Ghend,” the clansman said. “He’s the one who wants to speak with you.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Ghend.” Gosti belched. “What kind of business do you have in mind?”
“It’s nothing very important, Chief Gosti,” Ghend said. “I have some things to attend to in Equero. Normally, I’d travel there through Perquaine and Treborea, but there are some people down there who aren’t really very fond of me, so my servant and I decided to go to Equero by the northern route. We got a late start, though, so we won’t be able to get across the mountains before the snow flies. I was wondering if I might be able to persuade you to put us up for the winter.”
“Persuade?” Gosti asked, gnawing at a bone.
“He means ‘pay,’ Chief Gosti,” Khnom translated.
“That’s the word dearest to my heart,” Gosti chortled, spraying pork fat all across the table. “Talk to my cousin Galbak, and he’ll see to your accommodations.” Gosti turned slightly and gestured toward a giant of a man with a close-cropped beard and agate-hard eyes. “Look after their needs, Galbak,” he ordered.
“Yes, cousin,” Galbak replied in a deep, rumbling voice.
“He’s a big one, isn’t he?” Eliar noted.
“Bigger’n a house,” Gher agreed. “I don’t think we’d want to get on the wrong side of him—except that I don’t really see no good side on that one.”
“You’re lapsing, Gher,” Andine scolded. “You’ve been taught to speak more correctly.”
“It’s part of the swindle, Andine,” he explained. “Althalus wants me to talk ‘country’ so Ghend and Khnom don’t get no ideas about how slick I really am. I’m supposed to be smart but act dumb. I don’t know exactly how come, but if that’s the way he wants it, I’ll do ’er that way.”
“It’s colorful, if nothing else,” Leitha noted.
“When are we going in, Althalus?” Gher asked.
“Let’s wait a few days. We want to give Ghend and Khnom time to get settled in—and for everybody in Gosti’s hall to get used to having them around. If we go in too soon, somebody might see some kind of connection between us. I want everybody there to believe that I’ve never seen Ghend before.”
Althalus and Gher spent the next two days carefully watching Ghend and Khnom grow acquainted with Gosti. “That should do it,” Althalus told the boy on the afternoon of the second day. “We’ll go in about midmorning tomorrow.”
“Anything you say, Althalus.”
They gathered in the dining room at the foot of the stairs for breakfast the next morning, and Dweia gave Althalus and Gher a great deal of advice—most of which Althalus planned to ignore.
“She does that a lot, doesn’t she?” Gher asked Althalus as they followed Eliar to the south wing of the House, where their horses were stabled.
Althalus shrugged. “It doesn’t cost us anything to sit and listen to her, and if it makes her happy—”
“But you don’t never do exactly what she tells you to.”
“Not very often, no,” Althalus admitted. “We’ll want to come out on the trail about ten miles south of that toll bridge, Eliar—just in case Gosti’s got lookouts posted near his fort.”
“Right,” Eliar agreed.
The willow trees along the tumbling river had turned, and their leaves were red as Althalus and Gher rode north through Arum toward Gosti’s fort. “Let me do the talking when we get to the bridge, Gher,” Althalus cautioned. “There’s something I need to set up.”
“All right,” Gher agreed.
It was almost noon when they reached the bridge, and the toll taker stopped them to demand two ounces of gold. “That’s a fine-looking tunic you’ve got there friend,” the tattooed fellow noted after Althalus had paid him.
“It keeps the weather off,” Althalus replied with a casual shrug.
“Where did you come by it?”
“Up in Hule,” Althalus replied, even as he had the last time. “I happened across this wolf, you see, and he was about to jump on me and tear out my throat so that he could have me for supper. Now, I’ve always sort of liked wolves—they sing so prettily—but I don’t like them well enough to provide supper for them, particularly when I’m going to be the main course. Well, I just happened to have this pair of bone dice with me, and I persuaded the wolf that it might be more interesting if we played dice
to decide the matter instead of rolling around on the ground trying to rip each other apart.”
Even as he had the previous time, the toll taker became totally engrossed in the wild story about the dice game with the wolf, and Gher appeared to be caught up in it as well. Althalus was pleased that he hadn’t lost his touch, and he expanded the story, adding more outrageous details as he went along.
“Oh, that’s a rare story, friend!” the chortling toll taker said at the conclusion, clapping Althalus on the back with one meaty hand. “Gosti’s got to hear this one!” He turned to one of the broadly grinning guards. “Take over here,” he ordered. “I want to introduce our friend here to Gosti.”
“Right,” the guard agreed.
“That was a terrible good story, Althalus,” Gher said admiringly as they followed the toll taker across the bridge.
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“Was that the same one you told him last time?”
“More or less. I embellished it a little, though.”
They followed the fur-clad man up through the village, through the gates of the fort, and then on into the dining hall, where Gosti sat ripping chunks from the haunch of roasted pork.
“Ho, Gosti!” their guide said loudly to get the fat man’s attention. “This is Althalus. Have him tell you the story of how he came by this fine wolf-eared tunic of his.”
“All right,” Gosti replied, taking a gulp of mead from his drinking horn. “You don’t mind if I keep eating while you tell me the story, do you?
“Not at all, Gosti,” Althalus replied. “I certainly wouldn’t want you to start wasting away right in front of my eyes.”
Gosti blinked, and then he roared with laughter, spewing greasy pork all over the table.
Althalus glanced quickly around the smoky dining hall, and he saw Ghend and Khnom seated near the fire pit. Ghend nodded slightly and put on his peculiar bronze helmet.
Althalus launched into a much-expanded version of his story about the dice game with the wolf, and by late afternoon he and Gher were firmly ensconced in chairs beside the enormous fat man.
The Redemption of Althalus Page 75
