Sagaria (67 page)

Cheireanna looked back and forward between the wizard’s face and Sir Tombin’s visor. “
Suti
?”

Memo translated. Sir Tombin gestured incredulously toward the mouldy bread and cheese. “Do go ahead, dear girl, if you think your constitution will stand it.” Her hand darted like lightning.

“
Tahasso quamo
,” she said thickly through a mass of food.

“She says, ‘What a feast,’” Memo reported. “No comment.”

“The beer’s not so bad though,” drawled Samzing. “It tastes like, well, I’m not going to say exactly what it tastes like in front of a young lady, even one who apparently can’t understand a word I’m saying, but it has a certain, well, afterglow.”

“Can I have some?” said Memo’s small voice from the depths of Samzing’s pocket.

“I don’t see why not.” The wizard dipped his fingertip into the ale, pried his pocket open, and carefully slid the finger down inside.

Flip could just hear tiny licking noises.

Sir Tombin started, as if from profound reflection. “I say, Samzing, dear chappie, just how potent is that brew? Do you honestly think it’s the best of ideas to give it to—?”

His warning came too late. The memorizer might be tiny but, as they discovered, his belches weren’t. Neither was his voice.

“Did you know that the conclusion of the Great Worg Wars took place not three hundred and fifty-eight years ago, as is recorded in many reference books, but a mere three hundred and fifty-seven years ago? Oops. There goes another one. Beg your pardon, I’m sure. Better out than in, I always say. And did you know that the cheese on the hypotenuse is equal to the sunrises in Spectram while it’s still the middle of the night in can’t remember now someplace anyhow? Oh dear, nobody loves me.”

Samzing looked down at the now-empty mug. “Thish shtuff doesh appear to be a bit shtronger than I thought.”

“My muvver would be intereshted in the cheeshe on the hypoten … hypoten … thing.”

Sir Tombin leaned forward urgently and addressed Samzing’s pocket. “For
the love of Queen Mirabella, keep your voice down, little chap. You’re drawing attention to us.”

Flip peered around the tavern as best he could and saw that Sir Tombin was right. Everyone was staring at them.

Except the innkeeper. There was no sign at all of the innkeeper. Where could the man have got to? He said he was off to fetch some more beers. Hadn’t he been an awfully long time on this simple errand?

Before Flip could voice these questions, the door of the inn burst open, and into pieces as it slammed against the wall. A gust of cold air rushed in, making the sickly fire flutter in the hearth, and it was immediately followed by four heavily armed soldiers with the innkeeper behind them, still wiping his hands on his apron. The innkeeper gave the companions a sinister smile as the soldiers tramped over to their table.

Sir Tombin’s hand moved furtively toward Xaraxeer.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Shadow Knight,” said the leading soldier. He flicked his hand at the sycophantic figure of the innkeeper. “We have reason to believe that you are not entirely what you seem. An impostor, in short.”

“You will regret this impertinence, man,” said Sir Tombin in a voice designed to freeze blood solid. “Who is your commanding officer?”

The soldier was not to be browbeaten. “Who is
yours
? Why are you traveling alone with these prisoners? Where is the rest of your company?”

Flip decided that if it came to a brawl, he might be more useful outside Samzing’s pocket than in. Taking advantage of the fact that the soldiers only had eyes for Sir Tombin, he crept over the pocket’s flap and out onto the table. Cheireanna saw what he was doing and, as if reaching for more food, put her arm out to shield him from the soldiers’ view.

“How dare you question the honesty of a Shadow Knight, liege to the great Arkanamon himself?”

“We’re not sure you are a Shadow Knight. I repeat, where is the rest of your company?”

“They’re on the, ah, far side of the mountains,” replied Sir Tombin vaguely. Then, realizing that true Shadow Knights were never vague about anything, he hardened his voice. “I was deputed by my company commander to take these stragglers to the slave mines. Who are you to question my actions?”

The soldier’s eyes narrowed in even greater suspicion. “We’re the local watch,” he said. “How come you don’t know that?”

“Why should I know every piddling little detail of every piddling little peasant settlement?” Now Sir Tombin’s tomes were imperiously strident. The few remaining customers of the Cross-Eyed Ferret, sensing a fight brewing,
had made themselves scarce. “We Shadow Knights have more important things to think of. I say to you again, how dare you question me like this? These are dangerous criminals, I tell you, and I must guard them until they’re safely locked away in the mines.”

Samzing chose that moment to treat the soldiers to a lop-sided leer. He looked, Flip decided, about as dangerous as a bowl of blancmange. Somewhat less so, in fact. Bowls of blancmange could be pretty lethal if thrown with sufficient force.

Sir Tombin rose slowly to his feet. Flip, watching from the cover of Cheireanna’s grimy hand, thought he had never seen anyone more intimidating than the armored figure of his friend.

“And you, you callow amateur soldiers, not only question my actions, you interrupt my supper! Now, get out of my sight!”

For the first time, the leading watchman looked hesitant.

“Well,” he began.

But the innkeeper chose that moment to speak up. “I’m telling you, Sergeant Kofoed, the man’s a deserter, a traitor to Arkanamon, blessed be the Shadow Master’s sweet name. He’s stolen a couple of slaves and is planning to sell them hisself and pocket the proceeds, that’s what he’s doing. He tried to sell me that skinny girl for a purpose I hardly dare to guess right here in this very tavern.”

Sir Tombin bristled at the enormity of the lie.

“Why, you—”

Then he lashed out with his right hand. The steel-gloved fist caught Kofoed full in the face, the impact sending the soldier staggering back to crash over and onto one of the inn’s rickety tables.

For a split second, the tableau remained frozen, the three remaining soldiers stunned by the suddenness of what they’d just seen. Then they drew their swords just a moment behind Sir Tombin. Yet again, the glittering blade of the great golden sword, Lightbringer, shone forth.

“Yield!” cried Sir Tombin in a voice that brooked no disobedience.

The soldiers didn’t seem to recognize the tone, because they slowly moved to the attack. The innkeeper dove for cover behind the nearest table.

Three against one. Sir Tombin might be the best swordsman in all of Sagaria, perhaps in the entirety of the three worlds, but even so, the odds weren’t favourable.

Flip gazed up at the childishly beaming face of the wizard. “A spell, Samzing. A spell.”

“Yes,” sneaked Memo from inside the wizard’s robe. “I’m sure you can magic us out of this.”

Cheireanna picked up the empty beer mug and flung it accurately and with astonishing force into the face of one of the soldiers. Flip wouldn’t have believed she had such strength of arm if he hadn’t seen for it himself. There was a loud crack of breaking bone and the soldier collapsed backward. Blood flowed rapidly from the wreckage of his face.

Two against one now. The odds were becoming better. Unless, of course, Kofoed recovered enough of his senses to rejoin the fray.

“Ah, yes,” said Samzing dreamily. “Magic. Great stuff, magic.”

Flip wondered if the sorcerer was really as drunk as he sounded. While Samzing’s hands were moving aimlessly, his leg moved with considerable speed and precision to where the innkeeper crouched, trapping the man’s neck between foot and floor.

A
kerklash
drew Flip’s attention away from Samzing. Sir Tombin had crossed swords with the first soldier. Sparks flew. The blow was great enough to shock the soldier’s arm right up to the shoulder and he cursed, nearly dropping his weapon. The other soldier took the opportunity to aim a blow at the Frogly Knight’s head, but Sir Tombin easily parried it, Xaraxeer moving so fleetly that it seemed to become a fan of golden fire.

“A spell,” insisted Flip.

“Right you are, little fellow,” said Samzing in a quiet voice, entirely sober.

One moment Samzing was slouched on his chair at the table, the next he was standing in the middle of the seedy tavern, his arms raised high above his head. Only a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles peering over the flap of one of his pockets disturbed the majesty of his pose.

“
Salforam! Mithakan! Zelfior
!”

The windows trembled at his roar. The two soldiers still upright fell back from their assault on Sir Tombin. Cheireanna watched with a happy smile on her face, her hands poised in midair as if she were waiting only for the first good excuse to burst into loud applause. Somewhere underneath the table the innkeeper whimpered, clutching his bruised throat.

“
Salforam
!” bellowed the wizard.

From the corners of the room there sprang a breeze. Stronger than the gusts from the ruined doorway, it rocked the furniture, making it creak like old bones being awoken.

“
Mithakan
!”

The breeze became a gale. A wooden platter rose off one of the tables, spilling gravy-sodden crusts. It clattered to the floor, spinning like a top before finally settling with a noise like rapidly running feet. One of the windows shattered inward, sending a spray of small glass fragments over a swathe of
filthy floorboards. A smoldering brand from the fire rolled out of the hearth to rest in the corner of the room.

Instinctively Flip, Cheireanna and Sir Tombin retreated toward the wizard. Only in the area around where he stood did the rising wind not dare to venture.

“
ZELFIOR!
”

With a howl of vindictive glee, the gale swelled to be a hurricane, a tornado, a whirling nightmare of power. The air became a dancing storm of plates, mugs, tables, chairs, burning logs, chewed bones, and scraps of food. The dervish wind plucked up the unconscious Kofoed from the floor where he lay and hurled his body straight out through the tavern’s surviving window. All this seemed to be happening in silence, because the scream of the tempest drowned out all other sounds. The banister of the wooden stairs that rose from the back of the room swayed and jerked like a tooth being pulled, and then abruptly came away from the steps in a shower of splinters before following the unfortunate Kofoed out through the window.

One of the two conscious soldiers decided he’d had enough. Throwing his sword away from him, he dashed for the door, plowing determinedly against the blast of the wind. The blade he’d cast aside took on a life of its own, swooping among the reeling debris in a grotesque pirouette. The other soldier, made of sterner stuff, attempted to press forward to attack Sir Tombin and the others in their oasis of calm. For a few moments, it looked as though he might succeed and Flip, suddenly more frightened by the prospect of cold steel than by the conjured gale, scrabbled up Samzing’s robe seeking safety.

Then the soldier’s expression changed to one of surprise and pain. His eyes glazed over and he slowly crumpled forward to land flat on his face at their feet. The sword of his companion, still quivering, stuck up like a mournful tombstone from the back of his neck.

Almost at once, the wind began to die. Soon the only disturbance of the air was the draft from the shattered doorway.

“That was … rather remarkable,” said Sir Tombin, affecting casualness. Flip noticed that, nonetheless, the Frogly Knight’s gloved hands were trembling as he resheathed Xaraxeer. “Jolly good show, old pudding.”

Slowly, the wizard lowered his arms.

“I wasn’t sure I could still do that. The venerable accounts say that only malicious magics will work in the Shadow World, only spells whose purpose is to cause harm, and, well, that sort of sorcery has never been my forte. I studied it back in Qarnapheeran because one had to if one expected to graduate, but I’ve largely ignored it since then. Good to know I can still summon up the skill from somewhere, eh?”

Sir Tombin, pausing with his head to one side, regarded him gravely through the slits of his visor.

“You didn’t think to enlighten us on this particular point before we came through the portal, did you, dear fellow?”

“The moment seemed inappropriate,” replied the wizard indistinctly, obviously eager to change the subject. “Shall we be leaving here, Quackie? That bozo who ran out the door is probably fetching reinforcements.”

“My thoughts exactly. We can discuss this later.” Sir Tombin stopped halfway to the door. “I don’t think we’re really obliged to leave a tip, do you?”

“Memo,” said Samzing, looking down into his pocket, “are you sober enough to tell Cheireanna what’s happening?”

The spectacles emerged cautiously. “Sober? What do you mean, sober? I’ve never been otherwise. We memorizers steer clear of strong liquor.”

“That may be, but could you tell her, please?”

“Well, I would if I knew where she’d gone. Has anyone seen that dratted girl?”

There was a deep, booming, clanging resonance from behind them, as if someone had dropped a mighty bell on their foot.

Samzing spun round. “What in God’s name—”

On the floor was the spreadeagled form of the innkeeper. A few inches from his outstretched hand lay, where it had fallen, a wickedly pointed carving knife. It was only too obvious what the servile little man had been planning.

No longer though. He was dead to the world, and quite possibly deader than that. Cheireanna stood over him, a huge copper cooking pot in her hands and an even huger grin of triumph on her face.

“I say,” enthused Sir Tombin. “An excellent performance. I couldn’t have done that better myself.”

For once, Cheireanna seemed to understand his words without any need for translation.