Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (2 page)

Fine, I’ll shut up!
Rondal shot back, irritated.

“We’d like to discuss a business matter,” Tyndal corrected, smoothly, when Nymantis’ skepticism became apparent.  A fourth shell was added to the pile on the table.

“Ah
, business
,” the mariner nodded, still rubbing his uneven beard.  “Can’t stand in the way of a man’s
business
, now, can I?  Against the Fairdealer, that would be.” 

Invoking one of the less-bloodthirsty daughters of the Storm Lord as an excuse for low-dealing seemed to be a popular rationalization in Enultramar, the boys had learned in their brief stay.  The five deities seemed uncannily helpful at providing perfectly reasonable excuses for extremely poor behavior wrapped in the cloak of pious virtue.  

“I know the man – know
of
him,” he corrected.  “Though he’s often drawn out of Solashaven on . . .
business
,” he said, his drunken grin communicating just what kind of business the mariner imagined the man to pursue.

“Well, we were told he was the one to speak to about
arranging
certain things,” Tyndal continued, still playing with the four silver coins.  “We would be incredibly grateful if we could be directed to where he’s doing business, these days.”

“The Arrunatus House,” the man said in a whisper loud enough to hear over the waves lapping against the edge of the pier.  “
Second
floor.”  His eyes darted expectantly down to the four silver coins and back up to Tyndal’s face, pleadingly.

“Well done, Nymantis,” Tyndal nodded, and flipped the four into the air.  As drunk as the mariner was, he caught all four in his left fist as if they were four golden sandolars instead.  The look of misplaced triumph in his eyes made Rondal ill, but Tyndal just acted pleased as the old man sauntered away.

“Arrunatus House,” Tyndal repeated, satisfied.  “Second floor.”

“You know, it might have been helpful to ask where we might
find
the Arrunatus House,” Rondal mentioned, sipping his ale. 

“Do you not remember esteemed Iyugi’s advice on the subject of gathering intelligence?” Tyndal lectured, finishing his own wine.  He’d opted for Maiden’s Blood himself, out of a sense of adventure, and was pretending not to be bothered by the taste.  “Try not to reveal more in asking your questions than your subject does in answering them.’  I didn’t want to appear like I didn’t know where the place was.  That might have tipped him off and given him a reason to mention our inquiry to people we’d rather not know about it,” he said, sagely.

Rondal watched as Nymantis staggered back down the pier from the way he’d come, his fortune destined for the brandy parlor at the far end.  Brandy was cheap, and the drink of choice for the poor and destitute in Enultramar.  With so little of the local wines being exported these days, most vintners were selling their surpluses to distillers, the boys had learned.  The resulting glut of cheap brandy on the docks made drunkenness the preferred method of enjoying the economic downturn.

“I don’t think he’s likely to say much to anyone, after he drinks up that silver,” Rondal said, doubtfully. 

The mariner had attracted a tail, a string of local urchins and orphans who seemed to clog the docks and streets of the places they’d seen.  The locals of Solashaven and other dingy ports called them “barnacles” for how ubiquitous and unwanted they were.  The children of whores and cast-off waifs, the orphans of mariners and barmaids taken in their prime, they seemed to range from age of four to pubescence, but the string who haunted the docks here seemed to be mostly seven or eight years old.

“He’ll be happy to blab whatever he can if it means another cup of Maid’s Blood,” Tyndal assured him.  “For a mariner, I doubt he’s been on a deck in years.”

“Two strangers in town looking for Skrup for business are one thing; two strangers looking for Skrup who have no idea where he might be hanging his hat?  That might be suspicious.  We can ask where the house is from anyone else, without revealing why we want to go there.”  The barnacles surrounded the wobbling drunk, their hands outstretched and their voices pleading.  It was as if they could smell the silver pennies in his pocket.

Skrup is a Rat
, reminded Rondal, mind-to-mind.  The magical rapport between the two had grown with time and practice, until they could speak to each other’s minds almost at will. 
Anyone we ask about him is going to assume we have ‘business’ with his crew.

That’s why we don’t need to appear like rubes,
Tyndal shot back.

We appear
completely
as rubes
, Rondal complained. 

He knew he wasn’t wrong.  Despite the muted color of their clothing and their care to keep from attracting attention, the two were garbed differently enough from the average subject of Enultramar’s far-flung havens to be noticed. 

Most of the common men who worked the docks – or were desperately searching for work at the docks – wore a simple cotton tunic, laced at the collar, and a sturdy waistcoat; their shoes were wooden-soled leather laced to the knee over their stockings.  Noblemen – of which they’d seen a few, some in worse states than the commonfolk – and officers tended to wear doublets with light mantles to keep the misty chill of the sea at bay. 

And hats.  All of Enultramar seemed to be mad for hats, for some reason.  Probably the near-constant sprinkle of mist from the sea and the persistent rains that showered the bay daily during the winter season.  Even the poor folk managed to wear straw hats woven from the sea of reeds that clung to the stony shore.

By comparison, the two magi were decidedly dressed like Narasi Riverlords, in simpler doublets with far longer sleeves, far longer hems, and with far heavier cloaks than the Sea Lords and Coastlords they’d witnessed.  Even their swords were out of place.  Though they had stowed their mageblades, the sidearms they carried were from Castal.  Rondal’s was a short, triangular-shaped infantry sword, and Tyndal’s was a long, straight, heavy cavalry sword, the kind a knight or sergeant would carry.  Neither blade was common in Solashavan, or in any other part of Enultramar, where scimitars and leaf-shaped short swords favored by the Coastlord infantry were common.

So let’s adopt some native dress,
proposed Tyndal.
It should only take a couple of days to learn how to blend in, once we get some new clothes.  We can use the time to enjoy the whole seashore experience.  Once you get the accent down, the rest is just playing dress-up.
 

The barnacles following the mariner became increasingly demanding that the man part with his new fortune, at least share his bounty.  The old drunk was having none of it, holding his fist above his head and bellowing belligerently for the children to leave him be. 

It doesn’t seem too difficult to pass for a destitute drunk, for instance
.

“I think I saw a pawn shop last night near the inn,” Rondal conceded, out loud.  “There is an entire alley of them, a few streets back.”

“That would be a good place to start,” agreed Tyndal, rising, after he set his mug on the table, decisively, and with a regretful glance.

“Oh yes, some grungy clothes, a couple of rusty swords, and the taste of brandy and vomit on your breath . . . it will be as if you were
born
here,” Rondal observed.

“There are worse places to be born,” Tyndal shrugged.  “And it’s far more important where you die than where you were born.  Let’s hope the two are far apart in distance and time.”

“I
hate
it when you get philosophical,” Rondal complained, good-naturedly.  “It usually means you have no idea what is going on.  Let’s go.”  As he stood, there was a brief commotion as two of the begging children, frustrated with the mariner’s lack of generosity, began pulling fiercely on the man’s threadbare cloak.  Though they had not enough force or weight between them to pull him over backwards, they did effectively immobilize him . . . and draw his head back.

Swiftly, the mood of the children turned from pleading to aggressive; the two who were holding the man by his cloak were digging in their bare heels on the weathered pier while at least a half a dozen others swarmed over the mariner.  Rondal almost laughed at the man’s helplessness in the face of the children . . . when he saw him reach for his blade.

Rondal started toward the scene automatically, but Tyndal’s hand on his shoulder restrained him.

Remember what Iyugi said
, he cautioned. 
Do not get involved.  In anything.  Things are never what they seem, in Enultramar.
  He spoke it with the same foreboding tone that the half-breed footwizard told them in the first place.  While the idea of the old sailor spitting and slashing a bunch of helpless children over four silver pennies galled him, Rondal stopped his advance. 

Tyndal proved correct.  Iyugi the Footwizard, one of Master Minalan’s most trusted agents, had extensive experience here in the south of Alshar.  He’d given them plenty of good guidance and even facilitated them being smuggled into the rebellious province through an acquaintance who owed him a boon.  They’d come to respect his perspectives on such clandestine missions, after a few demonstrations of his powers.

I don’t want to see those kids get hurt,
Rondal said, his brow furrowed.

Before Tyndal could respond, the sotted mariner managed to get his scimitar drawn half-way out of its scabbard before a child on his elbow and a child on his wrist halted him, keeping him from swinging the point free of the scabbard.  As fast as lightning, a young girl of eight or nine, as skinny as a seagull’s leg, half-climbed up the struggling mariner’s doublet, drew a small (but apparently well-sharpened) knife, and slit the man’s throat in one deft move.  Her expression was not one of rage or hate, but merely commerce.

The maneuver was not novel to her, the magi could tell, considering how adeptly she swung out of the way before the mariner’s front was sprayed with dark arterial blood and the sour, alcoholic vomit that erupted from his mouth at the attack.  His scimitar and the pennies forgotten, his hands clutched at his throat as his eyes opened as wide as a gigged fish.  No one on the dock seemed to take much notice of the struggle.

See?
Tyndal said, quietly, into Rondal’s mind
.  You never know which side is the right side in Enultramar.

I’m not sure there
is
a right side here
, Rondal replied, sadly, as they witnessed a second swarm of barnacles sweep in and begin looting the mariner’s still-struggling body.  His coin, his sword, his belt, his old boots and even his empty purse disappeared in seconds, clutched triumphantly in the grubby hands of the gang of children. 

Nymantis ignored them, more concerned with the fountain of crimson that was leeching away his life with each powerful burst from his neck.  He looked in vain at his bloody hands, and his mouth filled with bile and blood as he struggled.  But his fight was over before his arse fell to the bloodstained planks below.  No one could survive such a carefully calculated and well-delivered slash to the thick arteries of the neck for more than moments.

Don’t get involved,
Rondal repeated, dully. 
That was . . .

. . . Yes,
Tyndal agreed. 
It was.  This is
Enultramar
.  Every seedy, silty, swampy little hamlet across this beautiful, filthy bay is packed with a seething mass of poverty-stricken humanity willing to do anything or trade anything to go one more day in their tortured existence.  This is where Ruderal was born and raised,
he reminded his friend.

How did a foul-smelling hell-hole like this produce that nice boy?
Rondal asked, more to himself than Tyndal.

Some of the fairest blooms grow in the most disgusting of soils
, Tyndal said, philosophically.  He often had expansive answers for such questions.  It was easily one of the more annoying things about him.

Well, that’s the bloom we’re here to pluck
, reminded Rondal. 
The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can get the pluck out of here.