“Well, kid? What about the toad?”
“If the crew ever sees Kyri, they’ll toss all of us overboard. It’ll have to hide in the wagon the whole way. The same for your serdil cub.”
“So we better bring food for them.” Lorel flopped down and sat on the floor. “What does a slithering toad eat, besides bunnies and fish?”
“Rats, lizards, small animals.” Viper looked up at Kyri, who watched them from the top bunk. The wretched serdil cub was up there, too. How had it managed to climb so high?
Why hadn’t Kyri eaten the creature yet? Maybe it had gotten too big.
“This one shall ingest human provender if circumstances compel such aggravation.” Kyri coiled restlessly on Viper’s bed, shifting the sleeping cub to one side. “However, most vessels maintain sufficient vermin to supplement one’s consumption. The mariners will not be cognizant of this one’s existence.”
“Vermin? Like rats and mice?” Lorel leaned back and laughed. “That gorgeous captain should be paying us.”
The captain would toss them all overboard if he figured out what was eating the rats. He trusted Kyri to stay hidden, but not the blasted serdil cub. It was becoming as bad an escape artist as Izzy.
“Hey, kid?”
Any time she asked an open-ended question, his heart started sinking. She wasn’t as silly as she liked to pretend. “I’m listening, pine tree.”
“Now what? How we gonna fight the toad’s evil thingy? You thought about that?”
“Many times.” He glanced at the serpent. If it had a long-term plan, it hadn’t shared them. “First we’ll find the wielders of the quest weapons. Afterwards, we must locate a wizard to bind them together.”
Tsai’dona groaned and flicked her fingers at her scabbard. “Bog swallow all magic stuff. How’d you talk me into this?”
It wasn’t his fault she’d started carrying the scimitar around. He was still surprised the girl was willing to touch it.
“We gotta find a…” Lorel closed her eyes. Was she counting?
Kyri arched up until its head touched the ceiling. “This one requests the anchor and the fire’s heart rely on the integrity of the thaumaturgy.”
“Nine. Ten.” Lorel opened her eyes and glowered at the serpent. “What did it say, kid?”
“It wants you to trust the magic.” Thaumaturgy meant wizard-level magic, which he didn’t have, but he wasn’t about to explain it.
“I don’t trust nothing but my sword arm.” She glanced at him. “And you and Tsai, I guess.”
He snorted, but he was pleased to be included on her list. “We can’t do much until we get to Shi.”
“The hatchling must exercise acute caution while in Shi.” The serpent sank flat onto the mattress. “This one shall be impotent to assist. This one is overwhelmed by the magic employed in the city.”
Tsai’dona looked up from her mending. “You’ve been there before?”
The Dreshin Viper nodded. “This one fled from the emergent evil in Shi. This one has since sought an approach to impede said evil. This one despaired until it encountered the hatchling.”
Viper unclenched his hands, finger by finger. What was a Dreshin Viper doing in Shi? Or in Nashidra generally? How much had it failed to tell him?
Lorel shrugged. “So you snatched him and got him kidnapped by a dragon to teach him more magic.”
“The dragon was not an element of this one’s strategy.”
“She taught me a lot. Things I’ll need to know to… finish the job you’ve set us.” He paced across the floor, but between Lorel and the lack of space, he couldn’t walk far.
He couldn’t even lie on his bed. Not with the cub up there.
Why was he letting that thing rule his life?
He climbed up the side of the bunks and grabbed the heap of star-studded black fur by the scruff.
The cub squawked.
Lorel squealed and sat up. “Hey, be nice to Baby!”
Tsai’dona sat down on her bed-bench and giggled.
Blast, that beast was heavy. He dragged it off his mattress, hauled it down the side of the bunks, staggered four steps across the room, and dumped it in Lorel’s lap.
“Poor Baby Bear.” She rubbed the pesky creature’s neck.
The cub cuddled against her belly and purred.
“This one shall offer succor, but it labors under salient constraints.” Kyri lifted its head. “The evil in Shi must not become aware of the hatchling’s magic, or of this assembly’s purpose. This assembly is not sufficiently formidable to defend against the adversary. The hatchling must perfect its shields.”
“Miswoven magic stuff.” Lorel heaved a sigh and shrugged. “That’s your job, kid, I can’t help none. What we gonna do for the next few days in this half-pint town?”
On one subject, the girls were always good for a laugh. He sat down on the wagon’s sole chair to watch their histrionics. “Let’s go back to the bookstore.”
Tsai’dona sighed. “Of course.”
Lorel groaned and slapped her forehead. “Not again!”
The little monster let out a high-pitched squeal. “Wheeeouh!”
Viper sighed, if he had to choose between the serdil and a mindbender, he’d give away the blasted cub.
Chapter 5.
The kid was too busy to eat his breakfast. She ate it for him. No point in letting food go to waste, even if it was just oat porridge. But for all his rushing about, they got the wagon to the ship right on time. The gorgeous captain even smiled at them.
The kid pretended he never noticed. He led the team down the ramp into the Wind Song’s hold like he’d worked with horses his whole life instead of for a few lunars. And the thread-fraying nags followed him like overgrown puppies.
Well, more like Nashidran war mastiffs trailing after a fox kit they’d mistaken for their own baby. The blue roans were that big, and the poor kid was just that little.
Those miswoven roans, though. They didn’t like her much at all. It frayed her thread her no end that she couldn’t ride them. Of course, they were only broke to harness. Not even greenbroke to the saddle. But they were so gentle even the kid could fuss over them. Not that he’d ever try to ride one. He loved his wagon too well.
They bucked her off every time she tried to mount them. Or laid on her, or rubbed against a tree… She got more bruises off them miswoven nags than she cared to think about.
She’d be fraying glad to get to the mainland. She desperately wanted to buy herself a horse. A real warhorse.
Weaver’s blood, she missed Nightshade.
It would be a miswoven boat ride to Shi. Though she had to admit the scenery was mighty nice.
She leaned against the railing and watched Miquel strut across the deck.
Yeah, the scenery was just fine.
∞∞∞
Leading his team, which was still hitched to the wagon, Viper followed the sailor who was escorting Sumach down the ramp and into the hold.
The sailor locked the little mare into a stall and scuttled up the ramp.
Viper parked the wagon where the third mate directed, heaved hefty blocks before and behind each wheel with the help of a lighten-the-load chant, and unharnessed the nervous team.
All three horses stamped and snorted. They seemed to know they’d be trapped down here for the next few days.
No matter how sorry he felt for them, they had to make the journey, and make it in a stable box. He led each roan across the hold and persuaded them to back into an appallingly small stall.
Clean feed and water buckets comforted him, along with a solid foot of fresh straw on the floor. The presence of Tsai’dona’s little mare in the next box over seemed to reassure his horses.
No one was around to watch him. He crawled into the wagon and looked up at the top bunk. Kyri’s blue eyes glittered more brightly than ice during an Alignment. To his darksight, the serpent’s coils seemed endless.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the serpent shook its head.
<
br /> Of course. If anyone entered the hold and heard him talking, they might come snooping to see who he’d snuck in. He shrugged and nodded.
The serpent laid its head on the bed and closed its eyes. Izzy peered at him from the center of its coils. What was it doing up there?
And Lorel’s cub was on his bed again, snuggled close to Kyri’s warm hide. He reached up to drag it off, but Izzy’s black-pearl eyes peered at him reproachfully.
He’d pull the blasted cub off his bed later, when there was no chance of a passing sailor hearing it squawk and squeal.
Dark shadows in the ship’s hold swallowed the darkness inside the wagon. He could see clearly – the darksight the dragon’s cavern had forced him to learn wasn’t affected – but he suspected he’d best show some light in case someone did decide to investigate the new passengers. He dropped his darksight, willed a ball of light to hover over the lamp bracket, and toned the glow to match a normal oil lamp.
Since the girls weren’t staring over his shoulder for a change, he’d do some preparation for the next stage of the quest. He settled cross-legged onto the wagon’s chair and opened the hidden cupboard behind it that held his most precious treasures.
On top of the pile lay his belt of fine port-red leather. Of dragon’s egg lining, actually, softer and finer than highest grade kid leather. The lacing pattern he’d created gave it an elegant appearance, and the overlapped parts made it adjustable. He’d finally regained enough weight he needed to loosen the lacings by half an inch.
Next in the pile was the matching satchel. The dragon said her egg lining was imperious to magic, especially to scrying. He hoped she was right. The quest had to stay secret.
After shaking the hoard of diamonds out of the pouch (how had so many large crystals fit in there?), he extracted a pair of bronze keys from the back of the cupboard and slid them into his purse. Not counting the mandolin Lorel had made for him, they were his last keepsake from home, the keys to Trevor’s house and its underground passageway.
He swore he’d buy that house someday.
From the back of the cupboard he retrieved the map disk he’d stumbled upon in the lowest level of Erlan, the deserted city in Kresh’s desert. Deepest reachable level, anyway. The little reptiles in the pools could have the rest of the tunnels.
He examined the disk for the seven hundredth time. It appeared to display a map on each side, but he’d guessed that the first time he saw it.
One side showed the plan of a city. The streets reminded him of Erlan, but they didn’t fit the drawings he’d made of the ruined city. The other side displayed part of an island, or perhaps a continent, but it didn’t match any of the maps he owned. One coastline rather resembled the shore near Kresh, but nobody had survived to make a map of the desert north of the little town. It could as easily be an outdated map of the coast between Moyara-Dur and Toranan-Yiet. The disk was ancient, if half of the stories about Erlan were true, and coastlines changed a little each lunar. Which left a lot of time for change.
He needed to find a bookstore that sold outdated atlases. He had a suspicion he needed to know exactly what area the map portrayed.
Gingerly, he pulled RedAdder’s grimoire out of the cupboard and stored it inside the pouch. Probably should have done that the day he got away from the dragon. All he needed was the wizard’s ghost coming back and attacking him. The crazy ghost tracked him by means of the little book, but the grimoire was too valuable – and too dangerous – to simply abandon it.
Finally he fished a flat, palm-wide diamond out of the farthest corner of the cupboard. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the girls. They were welcome to everything he owned. Except his books and this single gem.
He concentrated on the crystal’s depths.
The image of a beautiful girl formed inside the diamond, enthralling him as it always did. Her cool green eyes gazed past him. Her white-blonde hair draped over one shoulder like a frozen waterfall. She laughed, and his heart sped up. How he wanted to meet this girl!
Not a chance of that. He’d have to settle for admiring her reflection.
He wrapped the diamond in a silk handkerchief, eased it into his satchel, and stored the purse back inside the cupboard.
It was time he went topside and found out how much trouble Lorel had gotten into.
Before he even cleared the hold’s ramp he could see he’d been right to worry. She appeared to be quarreling with someone in Nashidran red. Why would she be bickering with an imperial official?
“Kid, get over here.” She shoved her fists onto her hips, although she seemed careful to keep her hands away from her sword hilts. “This chunk of Loom lint says we gotta pay bunches of taxes.”
Tsai’dona stepped away from the rail and rolled her eyes. “Most cities charge taxes.”
“Taxes?” He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Nashidrans put taxes on everything, for all that people like Lorel managed to avoid them.
The tax collector marched over to him. “You’re the magician?”
Magician? It might be a cheaper category than merchant. And it should give him far fewer headaches than being a weapons merchant. “I am.”
“Just you and these two…?” The man paused and glared at Lorel.
“My bodyguards.”
“Why does a magician need bodyguards?”
“Bandits?” Was this guy being dense, or had Lorel annoyed him that much? “They also help with my show. How much do I owe you?”
The official froze as if he’d lost his train of thought. “Your tax is… You have a wagon, don’t you?”
“In the hold, with three horses.” He wasn’t about to mention the serdil cub, the Crayl steel and enchanted weapons, or the thirty-foot-long Dreshin Viper.
The man nodded and wrote a list in his notebook. After adding a column of figures, he said, “One gentleman, two employees, three swords, three horses, one wagon. Anything else to declare?”
Definitely not. He’d likely be charged a hassle fee, too, thanks to Lorel. “No, sir.”
“Your tax is five nobles, thirteen patrons, and fifteen beggars.”
Ouch. Five gold coins and thirteen in silver. The bronze beggars were probably the inconvenience fee.
Lorel sucked in a breath.
Viper scowled up at her. “Don’t say one word.”
Tsai’dona grabbed the turybird’s arm and tried to drag her away, with as much success as she’d have lugging off a deeply-rooted pine tree.
Lorel snarled.
Captain Miquel sauntered over and bestowed his devastating smile on the tax man. “We need to cast off. What’s the problem?”
“Negotiating, sir.” The official’s eyes grew large, and he almost saluted. “Practically done.”
Negotiating, were they? Viper grinned at the captain and leaned closer to the imperial official. “Is it possible you misread your figures? Shouldn’t my tax be two nobles, fifteen patrons, fifteen commons, and thirteen beggars?” That would drop his bill to under half the original amount. He’d be content to start bargaining from that point.
The man blinked and tore his gaze from Miquel’s. Looking down at his notebook, he went over the numbers again. “Yes, sir, you’re quite right.”
Just like that? This guy was no fun. Viper pulled a velvet pouch out of his jacket pocket and counted out the coins.
The tax man scribbled in his book, tore out a receipt, and handed it over. With a stuttered salute and one last befuddled look at Miquel, he marched down the plank and out of the shipyard.
Viper turned to Lorel. “You owe me thirteen beggars. That was the charge for your fat mouth.”
Her jaw dropped. “I never–” She broke off, shook her head, and wandered away.
The turybird might’ve actually learned something. He’d charge her for the nuisance fees from now on.
Captain Miquel clapped his hands. “Lowering stations.”
“All hands to lowering stations,” the first mate shouted.
Sailors dashed ar
ound the deck, hooking giant cables to rings along the rail and closing the ramp into the hold.
“Begin departure,” Miquel said.
The first mate shouted the order.
Oxen deeper in the shipyard bawled a protest. Giant wheels turned and their cables tightened, lifting the ship out of its wooden cradle.
Half supporting Tsai’dona, Lorel swaggered up to Viper. “I love this part. You’ll like playing sailor, Tsai.”
The girl didn’t look like she enjoyed it any better than he did. He reached up and patted her shoulder. “Let’s go into the hold and keep the horses calm.”
Tsai’dona offered a watery smile. “I’m sure Sumach needs me.”
“You two are a couple of sissies.” Lorel strutted over to the rail where she could watch Miquel.
The ship swung over the seawall and began to descend.
The second mate, a tiny, muscular woman named Shiloh, grabbed Lorel’s elbow and hustled her back to the aftcastle hatch. “Ye’ll be staying out of the way, ye will.”
Lorel pouted and leaned against the cabin wall.
Viper jerked his head at the hatchway. “Down the ladder, bodyguards. The horses need us.”
Waves thundered against the seawall. The ship crashed into the ocean. The deck bounced and tilted from side to side with all the grace of a drunken crow. Sailors rushed to dislodge the hooks from the giant rings.
Nausea roared through his gut. His padded boot twisted, and he fell on his ankle stump. “Blast, that hurts.”
Lorel grabbed him by the hair and held him upright. “You’re a miswoven sailor, kid.”
The insult didn’t hurt nearly as much as having his hair pulled. He tried to pry her fist free, but her fingers were clenched tighter than bronze clamps.
Tsai’dona’s skin looked clammy and pale. She gagged and leaned against the wall. “Bog drown it. No, no, I didn’t mean it!”
“Hey, it was a clean drop. We didn’t hit the seawall once.” Lorel gripped Tsai’dona’s upper arm and shook the girl. “Don’t fuss when the trip is starting out this good.”
Alchemy's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 5) Page 6
