Magesong (8 page)

The breeze blew the waves into a light chop the first day,
and Reyin fell seasick before noon. He lay in the bottom of the skiff with his
bedding, instrument cases, the spare rope, oars, and other odd items of ocean
travel.  Farlo easily manned the tiller and the sail at the same time. He spoke
loudly, made large movements, had no stillness in him, so animated with the
beginning of the adventure was he.  But he turned pensive the next day as a
squall passed far out to sea, saying little as they watched the towering
pinnacles of the coastal range glide by on their right.  On the third day, as
the sun rose into a fair, springtime sky, he slipped into a brooding that
became darker and darker as they began to pass fishing villages and coastal
towns sitting among fields of fresh green grass and orchards studded with new
blossoms. When, at the end of the afternoon, they sighted the tall masts of
ships that lay in the roads of Noraggen, Reyin's spirit soared.  They had made
good time — over fifty leagues in three days.

"Let's heave-to and spend one more night outside,"
Farlo said.  "It looks like we can beach her up ahead.”

"But we have plenty of light," Reyin protested.  "In
two hours we could be sitting down to a hot meal."

Farlo gave him a hard look, his eyes staring through a
dangerous glaze.  Reyin saw in him the man Farlo had been when they first met. 
He turned the tiller over to make for shore.

Reyin did not sleep well.  Farlo's mood showed no sign of
betterment, and Reyin tossed with misgivings about his shipmate.  He awoke
stiff and tired, his bedding wet with dew.  Farlo sat near a pot of dirty
water, packing away his shaving brush and a cut-throat razor.  He had shaved
his head; it looked raw and unweathered, like the pate of a novice monk.  His
beard remained long and untrimmed.  Reyin gave him a questioning glance, but
Farlo stayed within himself.

They ran before a mild wind, reaching the quays of Noraggen
by midmorning.  A smoky haze lay over the city, and the mountains to the north
stood half-obscured, like shadow guardians.  Although it lacked the fanciful
look of the great Southern ports, Reyin admired the city's unembellished
structures of grey stone and rough-cut timbers, a sense of strength, the
ability to survive in a harsh land, not the power of opulent wealth.  Farlo
looked at it as one might look upon a prison.

Reyin found the city folk to be unaffected and
straightforward, even the watchmen on the docks seemed unsuspicious, almost
friendly, not looking for ways to lever a bribe from the foreigners as they
often did in the Southern ports.  The street merchants hawked wares to them in
broken Avic, sure that they knew no Pallenor, and Farlo was happy to feign
ignorance. 

"We must first sell the boat," Reyin said as they
strolled the harbor-side road in search of cheap lodging.  He had resolved
himself to that before they even sailed.  Storing the skiff here for months
would cost too much.  Indeed, they rather needed the money from its sale for
passage to Jakavia.  Dimietri wouldn't really mind once Reyin explained why. 
The fellow would merely order another built.  But Reyin hated to take advantage
of his friend simply because the man was wealthy.  It wasn't Dimietri's fault
that he had inherited a fortune.  Artemes held him in high regard because he
had found the way of the true magician in spite of his riches.  He said that he
knew of no other who had done so.  But Artemes, like everyone in the circle of
Ty'kojin's students, always took for granted the support of Dimietri's wealth. 
Reyin had told himself that he would never do so.

"Agreed," Farlo said.  "You find us a room
and take care of that.  I'll find a ship bound for the south.  See you back
here at sunset."  And off he went, glancing from side to side as he
walked, as if an ambush could lie at any corner.

Reyin elected to take a room at an old-style inn, the sort
built around a courtyard with no outside windows.  It cost them extra, but the
place was full of odd travellers from other lands, and even Farlo wouldn't seem
too eccentric.  Perhaps he would be more comfortable in a private chamber than
in the common room where others asked about who you were, where you had been,
where you were going.

Finding a buyer for the boat proved more difficult than
Reyin expected.  He spent the afternoon tramping the waterfront from the
fishermen's docks to the harbor master's tower and back again, making inquiries
at every pier.  At the end of the day he had spoken to only one person willing
to look at the skiff, a tax-collector who was weary of hiking to the nearby
coastal villages.  They would meet the next morning.

He looked for Farlo at their rendezvous.  His companion was
late.  He descended a narrow set of stone steps and sat atop the seawall
watching the wavelets of the harbor turn to ink.  In the early twilight,
chiming bells from distant ships at anchor punctuated the rattle of street
traffic, and Reyin wondered if in Lorendal they were singing the Song of
Returning underneath those same first stars he now gazed at overhead.  Without
hearing his approach, he suddenly discovered Farlo standing next to him.

"I found an Orianan barque that'll take us all the way
to Ava.  It sails in three days and we can go aboard a day early if we
want."

"How much will it cost?"

"Twelve silver-pieces each for common pass
passage."

"You mean living on the exposed deck the whole
way?"

"Right.  But listen, they're short-handed, and we can
stay in the fo'c's'le and eat ship's food if we work.  All you'd have to do is
help the cook."

"What about you, Farlo?"

"I'd serve as a topman.  I've done it before."

"It would still cost us twenty-four kandars?  That's
more than a gold ounce."

"Of course, but weren't you listening?  We'd get hammocks
below deck and hot meals and grog.  The only other choice is a cabin on a
galleon, and that would be more than triple the price and we'd still have to
bring our own food and water."

Reyin stood.  "Alright.  Let me show you where we're
sleeping tonight — I think you'll like it."

The aroma steaming through the kitchen door made them
light-headed as they passed.  After entering the common room where supper was
being served, they fell to a table and called for food like pirates.  While
they gulped raw oysters, Farlo ordered roast capon and corn pone.  Reyin wanted
the venison stew.  Both drank heartily of the local beer, which, they
discovered too late, proved to be strong as wine.  After they finished the pot
of stout, they ate cheese and fish cakes, and called for more drink, topping
that with gingerbread and sweetnut pie.  For a short time, they told each other
tales, and laughed, and lived only that moment, at last stumbling off to their
beds and to black sleep.

The next morning they looked at each other with dark faces,
as if they had committed a crime.

"We'll not eat like that again while on this
journey," Farlo said, turning away.  "I'll not allow it as long as my
wife and neighbors have barely enough.  We should take meals, to keep up our
strength, but not like last night."

"I don't know what came over me," Reyin said.

"We got a little drunk.  We forgot ourselves.  From now
forward we won't drink, not even watery grog."

Reyin searched for his breeches, trying to ignore Farlo's
commanding tone.  "I think we should forgive ourselves and not do it
again.  In any case, our finances will keep us away from gluttony, no matter
how much money I get for the boat.  Right now, I'm going down to see if I can
get a hot bath — might be our last chance to do so for a month — then I'm off
to meet the tax . . . what is that, are you hurt?"  A place on Farlo's
right forearm, halfway between the wrist and elbow, was securely tied with a
cloth.

"It, ah, is an old sprain," Farlo muttered. 
"I always keep the arm wrapped; you've just never seen me with my shirt
off."

Reyin finished dressing.  "Well then, off I go."

A bath cost a penny, two for clean water, another to have it
heated, another if you wanted soap.  He spent the four pennies, but had no time
to soak in steamy comfort.  He had to meet the perspective buyer.

The tax-collector liked the little skiff.  When he found
that Reyin didn't have a bill of sale or any other proof of ownership, he
feigned concern and dickered about the price, saying that he would have to pay a
lawyer to assure the legality of the transaction.  Reyin considered the trouble
of finding another buyer.  In the end, he accepted two gold crowns for Dimietri's
boat, more than enough for the passage to Ava, yet less than half the value of
the skiff.

The next day they lugged their gear to the ship
, Tarradid
,
that would take them south.  The square-rigged vessel, three-masted and wide
abeam, rode low in the water.  The galley would not be serving until they set
sail, so Reyin and Farlo went in search of simple foodstuffs for their day at
anchor.

Farlo seemed better, almost cheerful, as they paid a fair
price for steamed clams at a quay-side market.  A large merchantman flying the
colors of Sevdin, the sister city-state of Kandin, had docked that morning.  Now,
as the two travellers made their way back to Tarradid, a line of filthy men in
rags and shackles, dark men from the south, stretched from the merchant ship
along the pier to a place where thick-limbed men waited among benches, barrels
of water, and a huge iron tub filled with red-hot coals.  Other men armed with
swords and pikes stood nearby.

An officer of some sort, sitting at a little table with a
book and quill, called out, and a man with a billy club in his fist sent the
first prisoner forward.  He was sat on a bench and his head held by one of the
men while a skinny old fellow tattooed something on his face below the left
eye.  The thin old man did this quickly, without a care, as if he had done it
hundreds and hundreds of times.  The second prisoner was brought forward while
the first was moved to another bench to have his right arm tied down there.  A
short fat man wearing heavy work-gloves yanked a glowing iron from the hot
coals and branded the retch on his forearm with a marked lack of precision. 
The branded man tried to hold back his scream.  The noise he made through his
clenched teeth was an inhuman sound.

Reyin stopped.  "Who are they?"

"The condemned," Farlo answered.

"Criminals?"

"Mostly.  All have been sentenced to life in the mines
of the Pallenborne."

"The iron mines?"

"Yes.  That's why they tattoo 'em on the face as well. 
There's accidents all the time; an arm can get taken off easy down there.  Few
prisoners live more than a year or two."

Reyin looked at the scarred tissue beneath Farlo's left eye,
glanced at his right forearm.  "I suppose a man would do anything to get
out of a place like that."

"I would think so," Farlo said, his face carved of
wood.  He turned and walked on.

Reyin took quick steps to stay with him.  "I have heard
of ruthless governors who send their enemies there."

"That happens to some political prisoners," Farlo
said in an expressionless tone.  "But a lot of them that's in the mines
deserve it.  I suppose that a few of them aren't guilty, that they're just
fools caught in the blind workings of the state."  Their boot heels
drummed out a few staccato measures before he spoke again.  "Yes.  Some go
mad down there.  You would likely do anything to get out.  Even if you were
falsely accused, you might go as far as kill another man.  A funny choice: 
innocent and imprisoned, or guilty and free."

That evening, as they stood at the rail watching the play of
lamplight on the pier below, Reyin said, "I can make this voyage alone,
Farlo.  I'm on familiar roads now.  You should buy a mule and some grain, and
go back home to Lovisa.  You could go right now — take my pistol if you
like."

"No, I've decided."

"I do not need your help.  You're taking a risk for no
good reason."

Farlo stared out at the shadow city beyond the lights of the
harbor road.  "I have reason."

The full crew had come aboard by then.  As Reyin and Farlo
entered the forecastle they found a maze of sea chests and small barrels
cramped with wiry men unpacking duffels, slinging hammocks, cursing, laughing,
washing, wagering at cards, sleeping, and mending old clothing with needle and
thread.  Most went barefoot, their toes gnarled as tree bark, the bottoms of
their feet like old pieces of worn hide.  All of them looked burned by years on
the ocean.  In the middle of the fracas stood a large, long-armed man in his
late twenties called Tolan, who told them where to stow their gear and where to
sleep.  He stood taller than Farlo and looked stronger.  Although he had the
dark features of a Syrolian, his hair was a tangle of yellow curls, and while
he spoke Avic as a native, his voice distantly echoed a Baskillian tongue as he
told them a few rules of the forecastle.

"So you must be the boatswain's mate then," Farlo
said to him.

"No," Tolan answered slowly, taking a step toward
Farlo, "just a common seaman.  The lower deck always elects me to speak
for them.  I'm speaking for them now."

Tolan and Farlo stood too close for Reyin to be
comfortable.  Those nearby had fallen silent.

"As you say," Farlo muttered, turning to the niche
Tolan had showed them.  But later, when no one watched, Farlo stared at him
with glossy eyes and a faint smile.

Aksel counted heads once again as the upper valley fell
completely into shadow.  Yes, one missing — that confounded beast with the
white stippling and one black horn — must have slipped away when he was
chatting with the Svorden lad.  He scanned the far hillside.  The cloud cover
had broken to the east and a gibbous moon had risen late in the afternoon, but
that would not replace the sunlight he was losing.  He scanned the lower end of
the pasture.  There was the accursed goat, wandering into a wooded saddle
between two hills.

He should have brought the dogs.  He had been angry at Jonn,
though his son could not help being what he was, and he had been angry at the
dogs for not staying with the herd.  He had been angry with himself and only
wanted to be alone with his goats.  And now he was peeved with himself again. 
If he had brought just one dog he wouldn't have to keep chasing the strays.

He thought about the way Syliva had looked at him when he
had spoken harshly to Jonn.  He should have told her that he didn't want to say
things like that to his son, that the drought conjured devils out of him.  He
felt like a mountain pressed down on him, like a giant held his head, its grip
getting tighter each day.  Think and think as he did, he found no answers
within himself.  Syliva could not, or would not see past the next few months. 
She couldn't look to the next winter when they would have no fodder for the
animals, when they would have to slaughter the entire flock for food, and then,
even if the rains came the following spring, they might be too weak or sick to
work.  They would die before any harvest could come.

As he approached the first hillock, the stray goat jumped
and darted into the trees, then another movement:  the shadow of a beast
following swiftly.

Aksel broke into a sprint.  Stopping at the edge of the
woods, he heard terrified bleating above a thrashing sound, then a muffled
animal scream.  He charged into the dusky thicket, holding his staff like a
spear.  The goat was trapped in a dense tangle of barbed vines, a shaggy beast
lunging and snapping at its neck with a fang-lined muzzle.

Aksel slid to a stop.  It was no kind of wild dog.  It was a
fenwolf, a big one, nearly eight stone.  The fenwolf lunged again, but it
seemed to be only a clever feint designed to drive the panicked goat deeper
into the bramble.  It wanted its prey to become fully ensnared, easy to kill.

Shouting, "Hayah-hah," Aksel struck the ground in
front of him with his staff, thinking the scavenger would turn and flee. 
Instead the fenwolf charged, its yellow eyes ablaze, and when Aksel thrust at
it the creature dodged past the tip of his walking staff and closed its jaws
around his ankle.  Surprised, Aksel twisted, swinging the staff hard into the
fenwolf's flank.  The fenwolf yelped, releasing its grip, springing away as Aksel
wildly swung again and lost his balance, falling back into the tangle of vines
where the bleating goat still struggled.

He jumped to his feet, sharp thorns raking his knees and
forearms and face.  The fenwolf was gone.

Best not to wait around here bleeding though, those
things usually hunt in mated pairs
.  He quickly picked his way out of the
barbed vines, soothed the trapped goat, and cut it out of the bramble with his
skinning knife.  The animal was unhurt, not a nick on it.  That was good.  He
lead it back to the herd.

Later, by the light of his campfire, Aksel found tooth marks
on his boots, but none that had punctured the inner lining.  He carefully
examined his ankle — a few tiny bruises, but no broken skin except for a long
deep scratch on his lower calf, just above the boot top. It had to be from a
thorn.  He rinsed his lower leg in fresh water anyway.  You couldn't be too
thorough after a brush with a fenwolf, the filthy, disease-ridden beasts.  One
bite caused a fever that brought madness and death.