The Magic of Recluce (14 page)

“Don't we all?”

I shrugged. Krystal was probably right, but Tamra's whole attitude was to insist she was right and that the world should recognize it.

“Good luck to you all.” Isolde's quiet tone stilled the small room. “From this point on, you are all on your own. I hope to see you again, but that is your choice.” She nodded, turned, and walked out, the heels of her boots echoing faintly on the hardwood floor as she crossed the empty main dining room.

“…abrupt…”

“…typical of the masters…”

Rather than say anything, I gulped a mouthful of redberry juice, then waited, looking to see who stayed and who left, except that the table quieted, and we all ended up looking at each other.

“For all of the pleasant surroundings, they still don't really care.” Tamra's voice broke the silence.

I pulled back my chair. “I need some sleep.” I would have liked to talk to Krystal, but the thought of saying anything with Tamra hanging on every word bothered me.

“It's early yet,” complained Myrten.

Nodding at the innkeeper, back behind the counter, I took the stairs two at a time. I wasn't up to another argument, and staying downstairs would have led to that. Besides, after the next morning, I might never see any of them again, and I was getting tired of Tamra's attitude. Then, it was clear she was tired of mine.

The door opened easily, and I stepped inside. The room was just as I had left it, except darker, because the blackness outside was absolute, with not even a single light showing anywhere when I stepped to the window. The fog and clouds seemed thicker, but how could I really tell?

…click…

As I sat on the edge of the soft bed and pulled off my boots, I heard Krystal's door open and close, but no sound of voices. Off came the tunic and trousers, and I reached up and turned off the lamp.

With the quilt around me, I was asleep in instants, although I thought I heard a faint knock on my door once, just as I was dropping off; but I was too sleepy to get up and check, especially since it was probably my imagination.

Still…I wondered, but I dreamed of neither red-headed girls nor of dark-haired women.

O
NCE
I
STEPPED
outside the inn the next morning, I could sense more strongly what I had felt the night before and what Isolde had alluded to in saying we would be safe there without weapons. For all the faded blue paint on the shutters, the weathered timbers and gray-painted plank walls, the building radiated order. No barred windows, no heavy doors, no guards—just order. Enough order that it just would not appeal to anyone bent on disorder.

The clouds and fog of the previous day had vanished, except for higher puffy gray-and-white clouds that scudded quickly across a bright-blue fall sky.

I looked at the inn again. The thick shutters were supported by heavy iron hinges, with iron hasps for the sliding locks that would be on the inside when the shutters were closed against weather or other forms of attack. The iron was clean and black, the hinges clearly functional. The red oak of the door had faded under the varnish to a grayed gold that almost matched the big bronze door handles on the double doors that were now folded back against the planks for the day.

From a timber projecting above the open doors and perhaps two cubits below the second-floor window hung the neatly painted sign—Travelers' Rest. The gray paving-stones were laid edge-to-edge from the front wall to the curb, a distance of five cubits or less, and stretched from one side of the building to the other. Already, the stones had been swept.

Glancing up to the room where I thought Tamra had slept, I could see a glimpse of red through the half-open window. But the sea breeze gusting up from the harbor fluttered the fabric enough to tell me it was only one of the bright red curtains. Then I looked toward the back of the building, but Krystal's room window was around the corner. She had either left earlier, or was still asleep.

I shrugged and shouldered my pack, which didn't seem nearly so heavy as when I had left Wandernaught, and, after a last look at the Travelers' Rest, turned my steps toward the livery stable that had been listed on the wall behind the front desk of the inn. If I had to reach the Westhorns, it wasn't going to be on foot, not unless I wanted to take years. A thousand kays or more—I still resented Talryn's flat pronouncement. Someone definitely wanted me out of Recluce for a while.

“Watch it, outlander!”

I dodged a thin man wearing a short cloak, a ragged tunic not concealing a mail shirt underneath, and a short sword in a battered scabbard. Then I smiled politely, and stepped aside. He stopped and studied me.

I waited, shifting my hands on the staff ever so slightly.

“Told you to watch it…” His speech had a twang to it. Above his short gray-and-ginger beard, his face bore large pockmarks. The odor of stale beer, dirt, and other assorted filth almost forced me back another pace. “But you look like the peaceable type…so just hand over that pack.”

I stood there for a moment, frozen, not having expected an attack within a block of the inn.

“I said, hand it over!”

I smiled, moving the staff up into a defensive posture. “I think you have the wrong person.” I hoped my voice didn't shake the way my knees threatened to.

“Ha!” His blade whistled out. “Now! Let's have that pack!”

All I dared to do was wait. The sword edge glittered even in the cloudy light of the morning.

“Be a shame to carve you up, outlander…”

I would have liked to shrug, but I didn't, instead watching his eyes.

Clunk
. I blocked the short blade, knocking it away.

“You do know how to use that staff a little, but not enough…”

…clunk…clink…clunk…

The responses were nearly automatic as I concentrated on anticipating his moves.

…clunk…clink…clunk…

He wasn't nearly so good as Krystal or even Demorsal. So I waited, parrying, turning the blade rather than meeting it edge-on.

…clink…clink…clunk…

Sweat was pouring from his face, and he was breathing hard.

…clink…clunk…

Crack!…Whsssttt…

“Aiiieee…!”

Clank…

Suddenly, it was over. The small man, not much above my shoulder, I realized, backed away from me, leaving the sword on the dusty stones, clutching the back of his wrist where I had struck to disarm him.

“Black bastard…witch spawn…” He did not move, but stayed well beyond the reach of the staff.

I didn't really know what to do. I didn't want the sword. I really didn't want to hurt the man. He was more hungry than evil, but I couldn't exactly turn my back on him.

“So…up to trouble already, Lerris?”

I recognized the voice, took a quick glance over my shoulder to see Myrten strolling toward me. Even as I glanced back, the man who attacked me was darting away down the street and twisting into an alleyway on the right.

“That was stupid, youngster.”

“What?” Still holding my staff with one hand, I reached down and picked up the fallen sword. Just a plain blade.

“Looking away from him. Good thing he didn't have a throwing knife.” Myrten wore a bright green tunic and dark green trousers. His cloak was heavy dark-gray leather. Like me he carried a pack, but his was half-slung over his left shoulder. He looked more like a clean-shaven minstrel or a bard than the thief I felt he innately was. Two large knives hung from his belt, but I could sense the small pistol under the left-hand false knife.

I looked up the street. No one else had followed us out of the inn. Myrten was right. I shrugged. “I didn't expect something quite so soon.”

“What you expect isn't what happens, particularly when you get close to chaos.” He half-laughed.

I shrugged. “Want the blade?”

“You could sell it,” he suggested.

“Me?”

Myrten laughed again, a short bark. “You're right. That would be more than a little out of character. I'll sell it and split the profit.”

That seemed more than fair. “Fine. But where?”

“Let's just keep walking. There's bound to be something.” Myrten seemed much more at ease on the streets of Freetown than in Nylan.

“What about—”

“We're not traveling together, and we'll certainly leave Freetown separately.”

At the next cross-street, Myrten stopped. With dirt and clay packed over the paving stones and squarish mud-holes where some stones were missing entirely, the street looked more like an alley frequented by thieves or worse. Myrten nodded toward the left.

I frowned.

“It's early. Too early for the real professionals.” Myrten stretched his legs out, moving quickly, especially for a man so short.

“What about our friend?”

“Him? He was just hoping for an easy mark.”

Most of the doors we passed were shut and barred with cold iron. Iron doesn't have any magical power, despite the rumors. It's effective because it takes so damned much chaos to break through it that doing it isn't worth the effort. That was what Magistra Trehonna had said. It made sense, I suppose, which was why swords still carried the day and firearms were a novelty.

After we had traveled nearly fifty rods down the narrow street, crossing yet another, wider street like the one on which the Travelers' Rest was situated, Myrten slowed.

We stopped before a narrow storefront. The planks were carefully painted in rust, and the shutters were black, trimmed in the same rust color. A square iron hook the size of my fist held open the iron-banded red-oak door.

“Norn's—Weapons” read the square sign above the iron grate that covered the single narrow window.

“Shall we?” asked Myrten.

I tried to sense what sort of place Norn's might be…and failed. At least the shop did not radiate chaos. Neither did I feel any underlying sense of order. “It feels all right.”

Myrten hadn't waited for my assessment. So I followed him inside, suspecting a neat and dark shop with rows of weapons racked on dusty walls. I was wrong. The bright space inside, no more than ten cubits wide, stretched back nearly twenty cubits, light coming from a high roof that seemed more glass than timber. Ranged along the left wall were four large cabinets, each standing open to display its contents.

First I checked the nearest cabinet—lightly oiled, polished, with dovetailed and mitered corners, made of solid grayed oak, originally probably red oak, with a tracery of fine lines bespeaking age. It contained knives, even more varieties than I had seen in Gilberto's armory.

“May I help you?” The tanned and white-haired man who waited by the second cabinet stood a half-head taller than me. Spare, wide-shouldered, but his eyes seemed to twinkle.

I studied him for a moment—deciding that he was indeed what he seemed.

Myrten, for some reason, looked at me. I nodded.

“We were…
bequeathed
, as it were…this blade.”

The white-haired man smiled faintly. “You're clearly from Recluce, and someone wanted to take advantage of you early.”

Myrten frowned.

“Why do you say ‘clearly'?” I asked.

“Your friend”—he gestured at Myrten—“
could
be from Dirienza or even Spidlar. You, on the other hand, would never seek out Freetown. A ship from Recluce ported yesterday, with passengers staying at the Travelers' Rest.”

I nodded. “It's that well-known?”

“Not quite
that
well-known, but known among those who make their living that way.”

Something about his speech tickled my recall, but I couldn't place exactly why.

“About the blade…” prompted Myrten.

“Oh, that? May I see it? You could set it here.” As he spoke, he pulled out a sliding shelf from the cabinet. “By the way, my name is Dietre.”

The cabinet's workmanship was first-rate, since the polished flat wood scarcely whispered into place. Myrten set the plain sword on it.

Dietre studied it carefully, then reached toward the base of the cabinet and pulled a small pendulum from a narrow drawer, adjusting it before letting it swing over the steel of the blade. “Hmmmm…neutral, at least.” He looked up. “Would you mind if I pick it up?”

Myrten looked at me.

“No.”

“You're either trusting or very confident, young man.” Dietre smiled.

“Myrten is good with his knives,” I observed.

“I suspect you're better with that staff, and I, for one, unlike the past owner of this blade, would not care to test you.” He held the blade lightly, moved it around, balanced it, and then set it back on the wood. All his motions were deft.

I felt my earlier suspicions were confirmed, but wondered how Myrten had known about the shop.

“Interested?” asked Myrten.

“It's a serviceable weapon. Nothing more. Relatively untainted, but unordered.” Dietre shrugged. “The going rate for one of these is around a gold pence. My markup would normally be two silvers. On the other hand, you probably saved Freetown some trouble by handling this quietly, and I
am
the West Side councilor. Say, a gold penny.”

“Fair enough.” Myrten didn't hesitate on that, but he glanced at the third case, the one with the pistols.

“You have some interest in the pistols? Firearms aren't much good except for hunting, and pistols are scarcely the best for that.” Dietre's tone was bemused as he lifted the blade and slid the shelf back into the cabinet. “Take a look. I'd like to put this up.”

I raised my eyebrows. Most dealers would scarcely have mentioned leaving customers with a set of weapons. Dietre had some protection I hadn't detected.

The white-haired dealer walked toward the back of the shop, where he laid the blade on a narrow workbench under a rack of tools. Then he walked back to the third case where Myrten was studying the weapons.

I ignored both of them, trying to figure out the patterns of the shop itself, an island of concealed order in an almost random section of Freetown. Behind the front door was a second archway, as thick as the outer wall. A single plank covered the bricks or stones. The framing pieces didn't overlap the plank edges, though.

How it worked, I wasn't sure, but it was mechanical, and no one was about to leave the shop without Dietre's permission, open and unprotected as the place looked. The cabinets fit the same pattern—good solid workmanship that would have taken forever to break into once they were closed. Impenetrable to casual chaos-use.

“…three golds?” asked Myrten.

“That's low.”

I really didn't care about their bargaining, but I did want my five silvers. Buying Krystal her blade had been too impulsive, probably, and I realized that I could have used those golds. But she needed a good blade. Tamra hadn't approved. I shook my head, wondering if anything I ever did would meet with her approval.

“Three and half it is,” agreed Myrten.

I turned back to the two, waiting for the settlement.

Myrten struggled to bring out some coins from the guarded pockets in his belt. “Two and half to you, and I give the five silvers to Lerris.”

Dietre nodded, neither smiling nor agreeing. “Whatever's easiest.” He did not remove the pistol from the cabinet.

Myrten gave me the five silver pennies first, and I put them into the front pouch, the obvious one. Then he handed five more to Dietre, followed by two golds. Dietre checked all the coins with the pendulum.

“Chaos-counterfeiting?” I asked.

“You can never tell.” Apparently satisfied, he replaced the balance and walked toward the workbench. The coins vanished into an iron box bolted to the bench. Then he walked back toward us. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Not here,” I answered.

Myrten just shrugged.

“Then…good luck, especially to you, youngster. A lot of people don't like the blackstaffers, even young ones, and there aren't ever enough of you to dispel the myths. Good day.” He turned back toward the workbench.