Key to Magic 02 Magician

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  Zhijj was a busy port, with two rowed galleys and one of the new three-masted freighters – the Wind of the South – moored alongside the fitted stone jetties.

  Another dozen ships of all sorts, including her previous ship Dolphin, had anchored in the deeper waters of the natural harbor. She passed better than ten large warehouses – many busy with activity -- built of a rusty brown brick and also numerous trading houses and small factorages. Singing off-key, a large gang of stevedores and sailors loaded both the galleys, and several men were at work aboard the Wind of the South, engrossed in tasks that Telriy had not the seafaring experience to put name to.

  The Plydyrii’n town was the largest settlement that Telriy had yet seen. Peld had had but a single modest fishing village of less than thirty solid houses. The port at Ghaefh had been three times as large, but had had only a single narrow, huddling lane of brick buildings. Many of the houses had been dilapidated and weather-beaten and the people living in them the same. Though she had had to tarry there better than a fortnight awaiting a northbound ship, the general seediness of the town had dissuaded Telriy from venturing far from her cheap lodgings at the traveler’s inn on the wharf.

  It was still early morning; she figured that she had most of twelve hours till the freighter sailed. Why not see what sights Zhijj might boast? Besides, she wanted to shop for provisions and perhaps a rain jacket or overcoat, if she could find one secondhand.

  There had been no time for browsing or sightseeing upon her arrival.

  For Telriy, the ports were alien lands of unknown places, unknown people, and unknown danger. Syhle’s cousin had seen her safely into the hands of female kin on Peld, but after that, she had been cast upon her own devices at each new landfall. Just before dusk, the portly captain of the lumber barque from Ghaefh had put her off onto the jetty with hardly a word of farewell. He had been kind enough during the voyage, in a grandfatherly way, but had treated her more or less as cargo and had concerned himself with her no farther than delivery.

  Affordable lodging was always her first and most pressing need on disembarking, and such she had sought in Zhijj. Two inquiries had demonstrated that prices for lodging were much higher here than in the smaller towns. To conserve her meager store of remaining coin, she had snuck into the loft of a stable to sleep. Her hair smelled of dusty grass and she would have dearly loved a hot bath, but at least the hay had been soft and warm. Breakfast this morning had been citrus liberated from trees in the yard behind an inn.

  She certainly needed a good meal before boarding ship again. Seasickness did not afflict her, but meals aboard the barque had been dry prepared rations of one sort or another: hard beef, crackers, meal cake, or salted smoked fish. Twenty-seven days of that had left her with a keen craving for a full plate of beans, turnips and greens or cabbage, and some decent bread.

  After just five minutes’ walk, she found exactly what she wanted in a street market. Amidst stalls piled with cloth, finished goods of all sorts, cheeses, smoked meats, ceramics, scents, and farm produce, several entrepreneurs had established small eateries, some specializing in exotic foods, but several offering more standard – and therefore cheaper -- fare.

  Telriy decided upon one run by a slightly round young husband and a quite pregnant wife. The fact that there were already more than a dozen customers camped around small round tables scattered in front of the stall seemed recommendation enough, but the tantalizing aroma of the fresh rye bread stacked on the counter drew the girl inexorably. Without hesitation, she slid onto one of the tall stools and leaned her staff carefully against another. Two women, seated at the other end of the counter, talked about husbands and prices for soap.

  “Morning, mistress!” The proprietor greeted professionally, drying a bowl with a clean cloth. “We’ve a special today for the spiced cabbage and pork – it’s my grandmother’s recipe and quite famous here in the market – just five thay for the large plate. It comes with plenty of bread and a large plate of carrots or snap beans.”

  Telriy hated to demonstrate ignorance to strangers, but the man seemed pleasant enough. “How much is a thay?”

  The wife coasted over from a busy iron stove, wiping her hands on her apron. “A thay’s a copper coin about as big as a man’s thumbnail. You must be from down south. They don’t use the old Imperial system of money there, do they?”

  Telriy shook her head. “Silvers, brass, coppers, and iron pennies on Fyhraen.”

  “That’s one of the little islands almost down to Aehrfhaen right?” the husband asked. “Seems like it used to be called something else -- what was it, Keyra?”

  Keyra, the wife, took a glass from beneath the counter and set it in front of Telriy, then filled it with water from a pitcher. “You looked parched, girl. Have some water while you decide what you’re having. My granddad on mother’s side used to tell a horrible story about a place called G’emma or something like that. Nhywe, I’ll need more stove wood here in a bit.”

  “There’s a large town called Gh’emhoa on the east coast,” Telriy granted, taking a long, grateful drink of the water.

  Nhywe, the husband snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Gh’emhoa! That was the name of the island until some massacre or plague or some like. New prince changed it. What’s that, a hundred leagues?”

  “From Ghaefh by way of four other ports, the captain said eighty-five,” Telriy told the man as her stomach grumbled.

  “That’s still a long way from home. Did you ‘tire of the simple life’ and come north to ‘discover the wonders of civilization?’” Keyra asked, obviously quoting and half-laughing at a memory.

  Nhywe joined in the easy laughter and explained, “We’re fond of the penny theatre.”

  The couple seemed well suited for one another and content in their lives. Telriy wondered briefly what that was like.

  “No, I’m on my way to collect an inheritance in Mhajhkaei.” Telriy said quietly. She was comfortable with the lie; it was simple and seemed to be accepted with little question wherever she went.

  “Whew! That’s a long way to go yet!” Nhywe commented. “I hope the inheritance is worth the trip.”

  “You’re not traveling alone, are you?” Keyra demanded, looking somewhat concerned. “There’s rough sorts on the northern routes by all accounts.”

  “I am, but I can fend for myself.” Telriy gripped her staff automatically.

  Keyra looked at the heavy, twisted length of wood, then examined Telriy thoroughly from her tightly bound hair to her hard-soled heavy boots. The pregnant woman nodded. “Yes, I’d imagine that you can. You’ll have the special?”

  Telriy nodded, mentally tallying her remaining coins. The meal was expensive for Peld or Ghaefh, but probably not for Zhijj.

  “Your tale sounds a bit like that play that they do every year at the fair,” Keyra suggested, filling a large bowl with cooked cabbage and then ladling a thick soup of pork, onions and peppers over it.

  “That’s right, love!” Nhywe snapped his fingers again. He set a plate of carrots and a round of bread alongside Telriy’s bowl. “That’s my favorite. An Affair About Nothing. That fellow over in Plyd wrote it.”

  “Mother says he’s got a position at the court now,” Keyra commented idly, handing Telriy a large spoon.

  “It’s about a girl who runs away to sea,” Nhywe told Telriy. “She dresses like a boy to hide herself from the sailors. However, she finds her true love, a prince pretending to be a common sailor so he can ‘learn about the common life, learn about nothing.’ It’s right funny in the parts where they start falling in love but he doesn’t know she’s a woman.”

  “You can tell that it’s a girl though,” Keyra pointed out. “The woman playing the part -- it’s the same one the last three years -- doesn’t really cut her hair ‘cause she has to take it down later in the play and they don’t try at all to hide what she has up front.”

  “That’s part of the draw,” Nhywe inserted, smirking. “At least for the men.”

 
Playfully, Keyra swung a ladle at her husband, swatting only air. “Tosh!”

  She grinned at Telriy. “It’s my favorite as well, though I’ve seen it a dozen times.”

  “The story’s not really original, you have to admit,” Nhywe opined. “There’s a tale that we would get my uncle to tell every time he was in port that’s almost the same. Only difference is the girl was a princess who was hiding as a man to escape an arranged marriage.”

  “I’ve heard that one, but the princess is stolen by a witch at birth and has to flee disguised as a smith’s apprentice. She learns her ‘true heritage’ after…”

  Telriy repressed a reaction to an old and still painful wound. It was a peaceful moment, one of a scarce few that she had experienced of late, and she felt certain that the food sellers were harmless. The couple continued on, chatting along a wandering path of subjects of little consequence, while Telriy enjoyed her meal.

  ELEVEN

  1624 After the Founding of the Empire

  “Coo, what have we here now?”

  Old Rag Mahlye picked up the bundle. She had thought it to be only more cast out clothing, but it was heavier than it should be. The cloth was much finer than the threadbare rags she normally found while searching the trash heap behind this comfort house. She raised a flap of cloth.

  A small face looked up at her.

  “Curse them silly girls! If I told them, I told them a hundred times. There’s ways. Didn’t I tell them? There’s ways.”

  Rather than finish this oft-repeated conversation with herself, Mahlye hugged the bundle to her flat chest and took off running as fast as her bent legs could carry her. There was a woman she knew. By the time she had reached the house in an unnamed lane off Cockle Street, Mahlye’s breath was ragged and rasping.

  “I’m not young anymore,” she told herself and then laughed. She had not been young in half a century. Snuggling the bundle with one spindly arm, she rapped on the door.

  After a moment, the roughened panel swung open and a heavy woman looked out, not smiling. Plain of appearance, she looked much like many of the other aging, life worn mothers who were her neighbors in this district of workmen’s homes. Her clothes showed mending and her hands the leach of strong soap. Once called fair, she had given up on her hair years ago and had taken to simply tying it back with a bit of string.

  The woman did not smile as she recognized Mahlye. “We’ve no rags today. Won’t have none for a while.”

  Mahlye thrust the infant into the woman’s arms.

  Reflexively, the woman clutched at the bundle. Looking down, her eyes went wide. “Gods, Mahlye! Where’d you get this?”

  “It’s a baby, Lyrhae. I’d a thought you, of all people, would know that.”

  “I know it’s a baby you daft old biddy! What do you want me to do with it and where did it come from?”

  “You’re a wet nurse ain’t you? Nurse it.”

  Having been silent until this instant, the baby chose it to warble into a demanding cry. Spurred by the force of habit, Lyrhae turned about and sought a rocking chair that huddle to the side of her cold hearth. Undoing some buttons, she cradled the infant to her bosom. After a moment of coaxing, it latched on and began to nurse.

  Mahlye followed her through the door into the common room of the tiny home. She vibrated from one foot to the other, half spinning this way and then that. Insides made her nervous.

  Lyrhae opened the cloth that covered the infant and inspected it as it suckled.

  “Why, this babe’s just born! Can’t be more than a day old!” She eyed Mahlye suspiciously. “You didn’t steal this baby did you?”

  Old Rag Mahlye cackled, one of her eyes running off at an angle, as it had a tendency to do. “Nay, I don’t steal. I salvage, you know that. He’s a cast off.”

  Mahlye paused and tilted her head pointedly. “From behind the comfort house over Tippen way.”

  Lyrhae frowned in severe disapproval. “Shame that they allow them girls to do such a thing. Why, old Mother Shinoe, she’d never have allowed it. There’s ways, you know.”

  “Yes, there’s ways and I’ve told any that would listen, but they’re flighty things, never thinking, always expecting some patriarch’s son’ll buy their bond,” Mahlye agreed.

  “Well,” Lyrhae prodded, “what are you going to do with it?”

  Mahlye plopped down on a stool. “You know anyone that’d take him?”

  Lyrhae shook her head. “None that could afford to feed him.”

  “How about you?”

  Lyrhae frowned. “I’ve got seven of my own and my man makes just enough in his shop to feed all of them most days.”

  Mahlye crossed her legs and began rubbing one arthritic elbow. “Well . . . I could always raise him I suppose. Be the son of my old age.” This struck Mahlye as extremely funny. She burst out laughing, rocking back and forth and slapping her knees.

  Lyrhae eyed Mahlye uncertainly. “No place for a babe on the street, Mahlye.”

  “Heh. I’ve got a place, not much of one, but it’ll keep out the weather. He’ll need the milk, though, for a while.”

  Lyrhae raised the baby to her shoulder and patted it gently on the back. After a moment, she rolled her head to lay her cheek lightly against the infant and started rocking.

  “I’m giving it up, you know, the wet nursing. Getting too old. My last girl’s been weaned for years and most families don’t have the extra money to pay.”

  Mahlye knowingly examined her friend’s contented smile. “Not too old for one last time, though?”

  Lyrhae kissed the baby lovingly. “No, not too old yet.”

  TWELVE

  From the bridge of the Duty, Traeleon stared across the water at the smoking ship, his fists clenched in anger.

  “The damage is minor?” he grated.

  “The Restoration’s captain reports that the blast opened seams in the hull plating below the water line,” Lhevatr reported to the Archdeacon’s back. “She is taking on water, with some flooding in the engine room, but no systems or magics have yet been affected. He predicts that the ship can be seaworthy again in ten hours.”

  A pregnant silence ensued, broken only by the slight sounds of the novitiates and junior brethren of the watch crew moving about their tasks. Without turning, Traeleon announced in a voice pitched to carry, “Your failure to destroy the apostate is a disservice to the Duty, Martial Director.”

  “Yes, Preeminence.” Lhevatr’s tone was unflinching in the face of the rebuke. He bowed his head, waiting.

  “You remain in your position solely because there is currently none other among the senior brethren with your particular expertise.”

  Lhevatr maintained his penitent pose.

  “The Work,” Traeleon intoned, purposefully neglecting the sign of the Tripartite. His inflection made the declaration the commencement of the rite of the dead. To offer the ritual to one still living was both a condemnation and a threat.

  “The Duty,” Lhevatr replied without hesitation, his voice emotionless.

  The chorus resounded condemningly from the bridge crew. “The Restoration!”

  Traeleon waited until the disgraced Martial Director had vacated the bridge, then turned to a novitiate third monitoring a panel. “Send for the First Inquisitor.”

  Bhrucherra arrived almost instantly, as if he had been waiting close by.

  “What have you learned of the apostate?”

  “Nothing, Preeminence. The Mhajhkaeirii have no prior knowledge of him.”

  “And this indicates?”

  “We have only speculations, my lord.”

  “I wish facts, First Inquisitor. I tire of speculation.”

  “We shall redouble our efforts, my lord.”

  “See that you do.” The Archdeacon waved a standard blessing in dismissal.

  Bhrucherra tarried.

  Knowing what Bhrucherra wanted, Traeleon ignored the First Inquisitor’s continued presence for some moments. When it was clear that the assassin
would reveal neither impatience nor anger, the Archdeacon declared, “Speak.”

  “Preeminence, have you considered my proposal?”

  Traeleon contemplated the First Inquisitor. “I foresee problems with the Mhajhkaeirii surrogates.”

  “These contingencies have been in place for some time now, my lord. The brethren within the city have given sufficient evidence, over time, to prove their obedience. Also, redundancy has been built into this stratagem so that any less than satisfactory component can be removed at any time.”

  Within the Salient Order, the terms “removed” and “assassinated” were synonymous.

  “There will be no tolerance for error in this matter, First Inquisitor. While others of the senior deaconate have escaped the consequences of their failures because of the scarcity of specific skills, the skills required of the chief of the inquisitive branch of our fraternity are in abundant supply.”

  “There will be no error, my lord. The Citadel will be taken.”

  “Very well. Your stratagem is approved. Inform the Martial Director of your requirements. During his period of atonement, you shall stand superior in this matter.”

  THIRTEEN

  Aerlon Rhe stirred his lukewarm soup idly, wondering yet again, in defiance of cold rationality, if any of his Plydyrii could have survived. The half dozen or so Mhajhkaeirii’n officers eating with him at the table in the side dining room seemed just as subsumed in their own thoughts; there was little conversation. He was sure that at least one of them had been given instructions to watch him covertly, but did not really care.

  From the swinging double doors that gave on the kitchens, a legate entered the room with a heaping plate, glanced about, and then took an empty seat across from Aerlon. He nodded in greeting to the Plydyrii and his other tablemates and began eating studiously. As Mhiskva had given Aerlon the accoutrements of a Mhajhkaeirii’n marine vice-captain, it was unlikely that the newcomer was aware of the Plydyrii’s origin.