by Mel Odom
The fact that the Grandmagister wasn’t at Imarish’s Garment District was news to them. Still, they had recognized Juhg and Craugh, and noticed immediately that they were being followed. By more than Mullock and his buddies, as it turned out. They’d caught and questioned Raisho while holding a knife blade to his throat. Once they’d found out they were all on the same side, Cobner had told the young sailor to follow their lead.
Several minutes later, Juhg led them deep into the warrens that made up the Garment District. The shrill pipes of the Peacekeepers sounded now and again.
“Ye know these alleys as well as any thief, scribbler,” Raisho grumbled. “Unless ye’ve up an’ got us all lost.”
“We’re not lost,” Juhg told them, suspecting they all thought that. After the rush of adrenaline had flooded through him, he felt tired. Carrying Craugh’s secrets, suspecting that the wizard accompanied him out of his own dark desires and fearful over the Grandmagister’s fate had kept Juhg up worrying most of the night. “There is a friend not far from here.”
“Why go there?” Craugh asked.
“Because he’s the only man in this town that I know the Grandmagister would leave anything with,” Juhg said. He led them on.
Sharz’s Beadworks was located in a small two-story building nestled between a tavern and a dye-maker. With dusk closing in over the city and some of the shifts ending at the looms and the mills, the tavern was starting to fill. Carriages and wagons trundled across the cobblestones, carrying passengers and cargoes.
The shop was narrow with a hard-weathered wooden face. A sign out front held only the name BEADWORKS pieced together of multicolored beads. Windows on either side of the door held samples of Sharz’s craft on jackets and pants.
Juhg led the way into the buildings. Shelves contained hundreds of small boxes filled with beads of different colors, sizes, textures, and even scents. Some were carved, some were poured from molds, and some were found in the wild, like the honeyseeds of the pearl ants. The smell of fruits and trees mixed inside the shop much as they did in a candlemaker’s shop.
The wall to the left held a thousand more boxes of beads in built-in shelves. A long counter occupied the wall to the right. Sharz’s personal workspace—used while he minded the store and not while he worked on special orders because he did those upstairs without interruption—filled the rear third of the shop, made up of small tables surrounded by simple straight-backed chairs where he taught his craft to others who wanted to learn as well as did a half dozen projects at any one time.
A customer stood at the counter haggling over the price of a jacket.
When Sharz spotted Juhg, he settled for the amount the customer wished, wrapped the jacket in colorful paper, and sent the man happily from his shop. Following the man to the door, Sharz shot the bolt and lowered the curtains in the windows so that everyone would know he had retired for the evening.
He was one of the smallest adult male humans Juhg had ever seen. Standing scarcely a foot taller than Juhg, Sharz was thin as a rake. His bushy brown hair curled tightly, making it look like he was horned. He wore a leather apron over his simple breeches and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Needles glinted at his left wrist, embedded in the special sponge he wore on a band there to hold them.
“Juhg,” Sharz greeted warmly. “It is so good to see you again.”
“Sharz, it is good to be here,” Juhg replied, then introduced his companions.
“It has been far too long, my friend,” Sharz said, waving them to the back of the shop where stairs led up to the second floor. “Have you eaten?”
“Not for hours,” Juhg admitted. Craugh had sampled sweets and meat pies from pushcarts along the way. Over the years, Juhg had never seen how the wizard had stayed so skinny because he had a sweet tooth and a prodigious appetite.
“Then you must be my guests. If I had known you were coming I would have been able to set a better table.” Sharz took off up the stairs, raising his voice to call for his wife.
Juhg followed his friend up the stairs, feeling suddenly guilty about bringing so many to Sharz’s humble home.
“Has Wick come with you then?” Sharz asked.
“Not this time,” Juhg answered.
“Pity.” Sharz shrugged. “Nyia loves the puppet show he always puts on for her.”
“I remember.”
At the top of the stairs, Sharz called out again to his family, alerting them to the fact they had company. Nyia, his daughter, was a six-year-old who looked like her mother, Teeyar. Both of them had blond hair and bright blue eyes. Teeyar was no taller than her husband, though a little bit heavier than his rawboned state.
Flustered at the unexpected prospect of company—and so much of it!—Teeyar began at once to be anxious over what to prepare. She clattered through pots and plates in the open kitchen, checking vegetables and salted meat. Her distress was obvious.
Craugh doffed his tall hat and smiled at the woman. “Please, madam,” the wizard said in his best voice, “we didn’t travel all this way to beggar at your table. Let us help out with the provisions for the evening fare.”
Uncertain, Teeyar glanced at her husband.
“We came with no warning,” Juhg said, knowing Sharz was a proud man and would not take well to the request if it hit him wrong. He had always provided for his family and anyone he invited to his table. “Please allow us. It is the least we can do. And we had not planned to dine at your table when there are so many taverns in town.”
“Nonsense,” Sharz said. “You’ll not be eating in one of those places as long as I have a warm hearth.”
“But no chickens, husband,” Teeyar said in a meek voice. “At least, we don’t have enough chickens for the company we have now.” She looked pointedly at Cobner and Raisho.
Reluctantly, Sharz agreed to accept Craugh’s generosity. The wizard dropped coins into the woman’s hands, enough so that Teeyar’s eyes opened in surprise. She closed her fist around them, then got Nyia by the hand and set off downstairs to acquire the needed provisions.
“Would you lay a fire?” Sharz asked Juhg. “I will see about opening some wine.
Grateful for something to do, Juhg quickly laid the wood and searched the mantle for the tinderbox.
“Let me, Apprentice,” Craugh said.
Backing away from the hearth, Juhg watched as the wizard blew into his hand. In response, green flames slithered between his fingers, leapt across the intervening space, and bit into the dry wood. In just heartbeats, a cheery fire had sprung up in the fireplace.
Sharz glanced askance at the wizard. Wariness flickered through the beadmaster’s eyes. He’d never entertained a wizard in his home before, evidently. Possibly he hadn’t even seen one.
Jassamyn walked toward Sharz’s personal workspace at the back of the open area. The kitchen, dining area, living area, and workspace were all located in the room that took up over half of the top floor. Only the two bedrooms and the privy were locked behind doors.
Beaded canvases hung on the wall behind the workspace. Juhg watched happily as Jassamyn was enthralled by the images portrayed in beads on thick sheets of framed canvas. All of the beads were carefully sewn on with tiny stitches.
Two of the images were of Nyia. One of them showed her as a baby and the other was more recent, revealing the striking difference between the little girl and the baby. Juhg knew from his friendship with the man that he made a portrait of the girl every year. He only chose to show these.
“By the Old Ones,” Jassamyn whispered, her voice barely covering the popping and spitting of the dry wood, “these are … beautiful.” Drawn by the beauty of the beadwork, she ran her fingers over the images.
“They are.” Juhg joined her, glancing over the canvas displays. “They are from Sharz’s personal collection, but this is only a fragment of what he has finished. He keeps the others safely locked away.”
“I saw some of what he had downstairs,” Jassamyn said. “The style in thes
e is so much stronger.”
“That’s because I don’t have to attract anyone’s eyes but my own.” Sharz climbed the stairs and entered the room carrying four dark wine bottles. “I have learned that most people don’t share my taste. The majority of them want something bright and shiny, something that at once sets them apart from others and unites them with their friends.”
He took glasses down in the kitchen area and poured drinks for everyone. Removing a wheel of goat’s milk cheese leavened with chives from the larder, he removed the cloth and cut chunks for the taking, leaving them on the cutting board. A small wooden barrel to one side provided a half dozen bright red apples, which he also cut up. He invited his guests to indulge until Tecyar returned and was able to get a meal on the table.
Walking into his personal work area, Sharz regarded the canvases. “I taught myself something far more than mere decorative beading. At least, that’s what Wick tells me.” He paused for a moment, touching the recent picture of his daughter. “He thinks I have found art.”
“You did,” Juhg said. “Art disappeared along with the books during the Cataclysm under Lord Kharrion’s effort. Few practice any of the arts now, though I have seen glassblowers, metalsmiths, and others who wield their skills with an eye toward passion at times rather than profit.”
“You can never take your eye from the profit margin,” the beader lamented. “That fact is bedrock among craftsmen. I have talked to millers and loomers who have designs and patterns they have fallen in love with but are reluctant to put into production. Lands away from Imarish are hard pressed for mere survival.” He paused. “Sometimes I forget how fortunate we are here among these islands, how we have flourished when others have faltered or fallen.”
“There are a great many here in the south that have struggled all their lives,” Cobner commented.
Juhg couldn’t help but think of the goblinkin mines the Grandmagister has rescued him from. Although he sometimes fostered hopes, he knew there was little chance that his family had escaped from those. More than likely, they had died harsh deaths, broken and scared, before the Grandmagister had ever found him.
“Sometimes I think the prosperity we have found here has doomed us,” Sharz said. “Everyone knows of Imarish.”
“Why would you be worried?” Jassamyn asked. “Pirates don’t dare attack here. They have tried in the past but have always been repulsed.”
“I know, but times are changing. The goblinkin in the south are reuniting again. I have heard that the tribes once more prepare for war. That has been the rumor up and down the Shattered Coast for more than a season.”
Juhg knew that was true. Even when he’d been in Kelloch’s Harbor he had heard the rumors. No one knew for sure what the cause was.
“There’s a lot of water between these islands and the mainland,” Cobner said.
“Not enough. A number of small islands, some of them no more than stone spurs thrust up above the waterline, exist in those open places. And reefs as well. Those hazards that have saved us from ships for so much of our past now threaten to doom us. The goblinkin have become organized and have begun to build bridges over them.”
“The goblinkin are building?” Juhg couldn’t believe it.
“Not them,” Sharz corrected. “They force the slaves to build the bridges.”
“But where did goblinkin learn the technology to build bridges?” Craugh asked. He sat in one of the hand-carved chairs before the fire. His staff lay across his lap. A one-eared black cat had joined him. He stroked the cat’s fur and the animal purred in contentment, keeping one eye on the small jeweled draca perched on Jassamyn’s shoulder.
Sharz shook his head. “No one knows. But spies from the islands have seen the bridges being built. In another five years or so, given the present rate at which they are progressing, the goblinkin will reach an outlying island large enough to support and stage an attack.”
“What can be done?” Raisho asked.
“Nothing. We have no army or navy to draw upon. We have always been protected by the sea. Now we are betrayed.”
“You could raise an army,” Cobner suggested.
“Where?”
“From the mainland.”
“They are jealous of us there,” Sharz said. “Jealous of our successes. They buy our goods, but they would shed no tears if the goblinkin were to overwhelm us.”
“Have they not realized that were Imarish to be destroyed much of the clothing and bedding and goods they buy so readily will go away as well?” Jassamyn asked.
“Lady,” the beader said. “I know not what is in their heads. Perhaps most of them have not thought that far.”
“Warriors could be hired,” Cobner suggested.
“To fight what would probably be an unending war against the hordes of goblinkin?”
“The goblinkin bridges could be destroyed.”
“Mercenary chiefs have been there to look,” Sharz said. “None of them want to take on the task. The goblinkin are too firmly entrenched, and the slaves would have to be killed. The goblinkin chain the slaves to the bridges so they are forced to work.” He took a deep breath. “They say that the goblinkin decorate the bridges with the bodies of the slaves who have died there, that carrion birds feast on the corpses and leave only skeletons clattering in the breeze.”
The image filled Juhg’s head and he shuddered.
“What will Imarish do?” Cobner asked.
“When the time comes that we can no longer hold them back, we will abandon Imarish and seek our fortunes elsewhere.”
Juhg could not imagine the great mills and looms of the islands shutting down. Every time he thought of Imarish, he thought of the creaking waterwheels turning with the tides, how the sound seemed to permeate everything on the major manufacturing islands. No longer would happy children run rampant throughout the districts.
And in the same instance, he knew that his plans for establishing the first of the schools spawned by the Vault of All Known Knowledge were in danger as well. If he couldn’t help found a school in Imarish, where commerce and travel met so readily in a healthy environment, where else could he put one?
Sadness and frustration gripped him. So many things were spiraling out of control. Abruptly, he realized that Sharz was talking to him and that an answer was expected. He apologized for his inattention.
Sharz waved the apology away. “I was just asking about the other beaders. You have seen their work?”
“Yes. Several times.” In fact, after seeing the work Sharz did, Juhg had read a few books about the craft. He’d discovered designs and methods that the beader had not yet discovered for himself. But he had never told Sharz about them because the Grandmagister had suggested that the Imarish beader be allowed to continue the pursuit of his craft on his own because he was so unique.
Sharz looked wistful. “I wish I could see their works.”
“Maybe some day you can,” Juhg said, hoping that at least some of those books and examples still existed after the destruction of the Library.
“In its own right,” Sharz admitted ruefully, “my personal work doesn’t sell well. Except now and again I’ll find someone captured by a design or color scheme.”
Juhg looked at the current work-in-progress on the table. It showed a canal boat, the fish head on the tall prow prominent in the foreground, slipping through a canal as the sun went down. Shadows of night had already closed in and stretched across the canal water. The boat mate stood in the rear with the long pole he used for navigation firmly in his hands. The gray-green beads in the canal caught the color of the ocean, as the white ones caught the color of the man’s shirt.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jassamyn whispered. “What prompted you to do this kind of craft?”
“I don’t knows,” Sharz said. “I see something that I think is moving or beautiful. Maybe days or months later, sometimes a year in a few instances, and my hands find ways to bring those images to life in beads on canvas.”
/>
“You don’t work from drawings?”
Juhg knew that Jassamyn had an interest in art. Her mother’s talent had turned to music. The Grandmagister had taught Tseralyn how to write down her music years ago. Music and mathematics had been the keystones to interpreting so many unknown languages that Librarians had encountered in the jumble of books in the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
“No.” Sharz touched the partially completed image. “The images I capture on the canvas come from things I have seen. Sometimes people bring me images of things they wanted rendered, but for my own pieces, I always work from memory.”
“You have a beautiful memory.”
An embarrassed smile twisted Sharz’s lips. “Thank you, Lady.”
“Sharz,” Juhg said, feeling bad that he had to switch over to a more serious topic, “we didn’t come here for a social visit.”
“I know.” The beader sighed. “You and the Grandmagister, you have never come to my home just to visit, though I have often wished you would.”
“I was sent here by the Grandmagister,” Juhg said. “I hope to find a package he left for me.”
“A package.” Sharz nodded. “Yes, he did indeed leave a package. He said he might be back for it. Or you. When he left Imarish the last time only a few months ago, he seemed quite agitated. He had recently found some books that had brought him a great deal of anxiety.”
Years ago, on one of the early trips to Imarish, the Grandmagister had met the beader and taken him into his confidence while having to hide from a powerful wizard whose books he’d stolen. Sharz had been a dependable friend, and he’d been interested in the Grandmagister’s ability to read and write. The secret was still closely guarded from anyone along the mainland, but there had been a few taken into confidence along the way.
“Didn’t you come with Wick on his last visit to Imarish?” Craugh asked. The cat remained content to sit in the wizard’s lap. It winked sleepily.
“No,” Juhg answered. “The Grandmagister had sent me to Shadowmire to investigate a ship that had washed up from the sea that had been rumored to have been sunk during the Cataclysm.”
