Into the Raging Mountains Page 3

  It had been a Drogos-filled nightfall. Disturbing dreams played in his head just beyond consciousness. Too much ale and too little food had left him oblivious to signs and signals all around him. When he had awoken this sunrise with cold pea soup and day-old bread stuck in his hair and coating his cheeks, Ilion had cursed loudly.

  Events of neglect, events of carelessness were destroying his business and would soon be the death of him. No matter how much money is paid in bribes … a fool is still a fool. Something was eating away at his core, something burned with the heat of a red-hot pan, searing him into forgetful deeds and a sloppy life. The answer is in those Drogos-damned dreams!

  Another flash from the sleeves of deep-sea blue flickered in Ilion’s side vision, reminding him of pressing business. His gaze focused. In his musings the usually observant man had missed a few details of some of the lots that had paraded before the waiting buyers, but nothing important. Nothing was lost.

  Now though, he saw the midnight-blue sleeves that had caught his rude attention moments before. Those same arms were moving forward with a trained grace as the younger priest went to bid. Ilion had not paid close enough attention to the auctioneer’s sonorous voice to know what had drawn the two men to this place of deception. It didn’t look like much, that was certain: a pile of torn and tattered papers. More like litter than treasure.

  The old, stone foundation of the highest tower reverberated as the temple gong pealed out a deep note. The noise of the gathered crowd extinguished in its echoing wake, replaced by gazes of cutthroat intensity that marked the beginning of bidding. It was deathly quiet as Ilion watched the dance begin. From his slouched position against the craggy stone wall, he saw four interested bidders step forward from the cluster of onlookers and walk over to the series of interlocking circles raised on the central floor. Each stood in the center of a ring and chose a position.

  Stillness settled over the bidders. Any movement or loss of balance would be viewed as a drop from the bidding. To sneeze, twitch, scratch, or sit was to lose the lot. Patience and balance were the key elements in a successful acquisition.

  Licking his lips and settling his thirst with a swig of warm water from his other pouch, Ilion allowed his thoughts to again turn inward. A man unfamiliar with abiding fear, he felt a tightness in his lungs that still hurt from phantom pain.

  In his last remembered dreams this sunrise, Ilion had struggled for elusive breath. He half-recalled the blurry dream, but the feeling he had awoken to was alarm:

  Surrounded by brown, damp earth, caressing, smothering, grasping, and enclosing him in a tender vise, he fought to inhale the scarce air and felt a terrifying sense of unfamiliar helplessness. He pushed against the enclosing dark, attempting one last struggle against his approaching, inevitable death. As the darkened land encompassed his last gulp of air, as his eyes swam with the bright and sharp light dancing illusively inside his eyelids, as he faded slowly into the pitch, a voice called to him.

  Uncertain of the sound, silent in his grave of collapsed earth, Ilion retreated into his boyhood training and exhaled his last breath to answer. To answer—to answer—it became the focus of his shrinking consciousness. His reply stole from his lips, empty of air. Voiceless, cut off, and drowning in dirt, he mouthed his reply again.

  Am I heard?

  He felt panic in the silence. Warmth surrounded him. Nightfall enclosed him in eternal sleep and his core ember, his minute soul, the unknown trickle of flame-being flared against the oncoming tidal dark. Engulfed in a flicker of soul that flared in power into a raging bonfire, he prepared himself to fight the greatest of all attackers in order to shout his reply. Opening his mouth, spiritually full of power and light, his voice echoed its message with the vastness of a deep gong.

  As soon as he had awakened, the dream had faded in detail. What had he shouted with such force? With whom was he so determined to speak? Regardless of its import, it was such an unpromising way to begin a day of attention-demanding bidding.

  The braying voice of the auctioneer returned Ilion to the furious action (or lack of it) occurring at the center of the auction.

  Currently, the priest of Kira stood against an axeman of the Gogonat tribes, both motionless in their determination to win the bid. The pile of contested articles lay on the stand surrounded by the dark-cacao-colored robes of Thieves’ Guards. It didn’t look like much to fight over: a pile of papers, something woven of red cord, and a few silver amulets or coins.

  Not much older than twenty-five cycles, the young priest’s supple and spry body held immobility with ease. With the slight breeze meandering through the courtyard, Ilion could discern the meditation-trained and centered discipline of a journeyman gatherer.

  All of Ilion’s clients had needs and desires that the rare items he procured assuaged at least temporarily. Priests were no exception. Indeed, the more devout were continuously after old papers and parchments, as if the ancients held some fantastical, secret knowledge that must be guarded and relearned. Ilion snorted. The present is enough for me, and then some.

  The Gogonat warrior was another matter entirely. What would an axeman from the Northern Vistas want with a pile of old papers and silver scrap? Gogonats were not known as lovers of books or trade. Their presence here was an oddity.

  Purring softly, the auctioneer’s voice climbed ever higher, “three thousand sabals, three thousand twenty, three thousand forty …” The price was escalating and neither bidder seemed inclined to move. Fascinating, just fascinating. They fight so valiantly for junk.

  Sweat rolled down the Gogonat’s nose and splashed onto the ground by his leather boots. His muscles were tensed, and the sandy-brown hair on his legs and arms glistened with the mingling of sweat and dust from the mounds. His determination, inexplicable though it was, was carefully meted out with a warrior’s stamina and concentration. The bid already exceeded a tradesman’s wage in Dressarna for a full cycle, and still it climbed.

  In opposition, the vivid blue sleeves of the priest’s shirt rippled, the embellishments of shells and pearls clacking together along his vest, but the only movement in his body was the tightening of his gaze.

  “Four thousand six hundred sabals, four thousand six hundred twenty, four thousand six hundred forty, …” This was remarkable bidding for a pile of trash. Maybe there was something of value in that lot Ilion had not seen.

  Just then, a fat, lumbering horsefly intervened in the contest, buzzing around the onlookers. Stick fans and arms started waving in the crowd, shooing away the rather large and noisy insect. Logically, the thirsty, bumbling fly headed for the sanctuary of sweat and quiet. Landing abruptly on the face of the priest of Kira, crawling up his temples toward the sweat-slicked brow, the insect clung and drank.

  The Gogonat’s eyes welled up in relief, but he didn’t crack a disqualifying smile at the fate of his adversary. The fly was a sign of divine favor toward the Gogonat’s bid, the embodiment of Thenta’s blessing.

  Kira and Thenta never were the best of friends, so no one was all that surprised when the fly bit down on the forehead of the younger priest. The fly settled in to drink the blood now trickling down the wound, and the suffering eyes below sought out the face of the second priest. The watcher held his arms low and together, hands chapeled: the sign of Bear-Trapped. The crowd watched the exchange with uncomprehending interest.

  Remarkably, the young priest held his bid. The slow torture of the courageous man continued. Although determination such as this was usually rewarded by the goddess, Thenta’s will was apparent to all as a second buzzing arose. Gasps were heard in the rustle of onlookers as another, larger and evidently even more mean-tempered horsefly waddled through the air and landed on the upper lip of the bloody man.

  For a moment Mr. Horsefly and the sweating priest of Kira regarded each other, a glimpse of communication between insect and man. Spreading its wings, the fly almost seemed to shrug, and turned its body, burying its fuzzy head deep in the man’s flared nostril.
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br />   The crowd’s tension was palpable, as the priest stood with a fly drinking from his bloody forehead and another partially immersed in his nose. Surely in pain, yet he did not move. His adversary’s determination not to laugh was rewarded with the appearance of a third fly, as the auctioneer’s voice caressed the air with escalating numbers, “five thousand fifty, five thousand one hundred, five thousand one hundred fifty, …” Obviously, Thenta had determined the outcome of this bid, as the third fly landed on the motionless priest’s tear duct.

  Again, two gazes met, insect and man. Thenta’s will would not be crossed. No message could have been clearer. The younger priest again looked to his companion, his face expressionless. The older priest made a hand sign of Divine-Will. Relief palpable on his face, the advocate of Kira closed his eyes, sighed and stepped off the mound.

  The three noisy horseflies lifted off their victim with a viscous sucking sound accompanying the removal from his nose, and flew over to the amazed barbarian. Landing on his brow, each drank from the Gogonat’s sweaty hair, never biting, and rose on the breeze, vanishing. Victorious, the Gogonat axeman sauntered over to claim the lot and finalize the highest price of the entire market: five thousand two hundred fifty sabals.

  When gods intervene in minutiae, even the jaded take notice. Ilion disliked the whole event. Even amidst her worshippers, the capricious and powerful goddess did not usually display her desires so plainly. Such interest in a few bits of scrap made Ilion’s throat sticky. Nothing good has ever come of Thenta’s plans, at least nothing good for men.

  Covetous eyes stared at the Gogonat’s broad shoulders as he swept the contents of the lot into the vast, animal-skin pack worn across his broad shoulders and strode through the gate to the city. No one moved to intercept him; no one dared. The most longing gazes came from the priests of Kira, who trading the Osprey-Diving hand gesture between them, walked out of the bidding arena after the victorious fighter, trailing at a respectful distance.

  Random divine incident aside, Ilion settled in for a long day of waiting. This was simply another day, another task to accomplish. Unlike the passion of the younger priest, he had no fire in his heart, no reason to suffer such degradation.

  Feeling the slightly cool stone against his back, wiping away the beads of perspiration, Ilion was content. It was curious how people were motivated by perceived needs outside of themselves when a bit of innersight and discipline would cure most ailments. I need nothing, and nothing needs me.

  But Ilion was a procurer, trained by the blackest mistress of trade this side of the Raging Mountains. No matter how ridiculous an item might appear, or how useless, if there was a market for it, Ilion would have a source. There was no shortage of honest men willing to pay a hefty fee for his time and skills to obtain obscure and often dangerous objects. And while his own heart was not quickened by the need to acquire, his continued health and prosperity depended on mastery of his clients’ odd obsessions and rivalries, and his patient and persistent pursuit of whatever they wanted. It did not matter if it was contraband, plundered, or out of season, he would get it.

  At last the auctioneer said, “Staves of curious workmanship honoring the chameleon goddess Thenta. Included in the lot are three scarlet blankets trimmed in ropes of ocher gold, depicting the Duke of Archeton riding to war, and a bag of silver bangles, etched and then rubbed in ink.”

  After watching her interference with the priests’ bid, Ilion was reluctant to seek artifacts of the thieves’ own patroness. Hard coin seemed enough of an inducement for them to steal and sell even items of their own professed denomination. Perhaps Thenta herself approved of such boldness? They all moved to a dance of the Goddess’s own making.

  As Ilion uncoiled himself from the wall, several alert glances were exchanged by veterans of the Thieves Auction. Long and fluid, Ilion’s stride covered the ground quickly so that he arrived at his chosen mound at the same time as three other bidders appeared. Each settled in for the start of bidding, taking full measure of their competition.

  Across from Ilion stood a golden-skinned woman clothed in brown and tan cured animal skins held together by intricately wrought silver medallions. The harsh light of the afternoon sun lit her hair to a halo of brown and copper. Her face was common but pretty, her cheek marked with the glyph of the snarling lioness of the Western Mountains. Ilion knew he faced a plains huntress at the beginning of her Laughing Journey. Fierce and determined as she might be in her pursuit of prey, bidding like this was better left to veterans.

  Between the huntress and himself, stood two others. The closest was a beleaguered and vague-looking, graying man who, by his patched and torn robes, was once a follower of the Falcons. Head bent in weariness, any wind at all would have blown him out of the ancient fortress’s stone courtyard. Lost and disheveled, the priest had no sense of permanence about him, no feeling of resolve. Ilion dismissed him as a contender.

  Standing between the worn Falcon and new Huntress was a face he regretted seeing every time he glimpsed it—Jakor. Good for a free drink once in a season or so, Jakor was not a respected thief. If everyone knew a man’s profession, as in this case, there must be a lack of skill or a wagging tongue involved. It was only a matter of time before a more clever mind used Jakor’s reputation to divert guards from their true goal.

  Ilion had little use for braggarts. Jakor’s only amusing talent was his ability to belch while singing old ballads. Sometimes, boorishness is its own reward. The friendship that had been was long gone, long ago.

  Ilion could still see Kalina’s eyes as she lay dying, run through in an “accident” while Jakor stood guard, drunk off his stool. Even if he were inclined to forgive the man for his failure, the conniving and covetous gaze that the brazen man now returned left Ilion no doubt that all of it, even Kalina’s death, had been intentional.

  As the hot sun beat down upon the auction, Ilion refused to acknowledge the dross. Having sized up the opposition, Ilion stood ready on his mound.

  Taking a breath, he gathered in, and lifted one leg to his knee, assuming the P-shaped Grasshopper position. The crowd murmured. His competitors stared with flat incredulity for a moment before clearing their expressions as the Auction resumed. Singsong voice rising, the auctioneer began the bidding. While appearing to be a haphazard way of performing his bid, a few in the crowd recognized the restraint and posture of a master gatherer.

  In the corner of his eye, Ilion saw Jakor physically compress his pose and balance, and gave a mental sigh. This bidding might prove to be expensive … always a sore spot for Ilion. The huntress stood at ease, confident and bold. Old Falcon’s robe whispered with each breath, riding the intake and exhale of fragile age. As the numbers climbed, no one moved. These staves are going to be a tedious bit of work.

  “Three thousand, three thousand twenty, three thousand forty, …” marched the escalating price.

  A small eddy of whirlwind blew through the courtyard. At an even four thousand, Jakor’s eyes watered and twitched. His nostrils flared and his breath staggered when, in a violent reaction to the stirring air full of dirt, Jakor loudly sneezed. He removed himself from the bidding with a shrug of awkward shoulders.

  Ilion could feel the fool’s raking gaze, angry and spiteful with imagined wrongs. After this bidding was done, Ilion would get to the core of Jakor’s deceits. Kalina would be revenged.

  The stirring of the dust also tested the earnest resolve of the huntress. It deposited a thin layer of grit on her eyelashes and eyebrows, mingling with her sweat. She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision, and then inaudibly swore. She reached for her facecloth to wipe her eyes of congealing gunk.

  Ilion’s body was steady, not affected by the bits of dust blowing around, for the simple reason that he was holding the air in his lungs. Capable of sustaining himself without breath for over three sands and having seen the vortex arrive, he stood in his Grasshopper pose, nonreactive. As the Huntress stepped away from the mound, she saw Ilion’s first intake of new
air in over two and a half sands. He inhaled slowly and deeply, maintaining perfect stillness.

  Old Falcon’s body wilted in the heat of day, appearing more vaporous and almost transparent, as if it was a trick of the fall of light. Ilion could not tear his eyes away from the opposite wall to really study Old Falcon, because it would cause him to lose the auction bid. As the numbers climbed, Ilion maintained stillness with ease. The auctioneer’s voice fell silent for a moment, as he paused to sip some water.

  And then, the oddest occurrence began: Out of his peripheral vision, Ilion saw his competitor walking toward him, moving out of his bidding pose, gray, dingy robe swishing. His innersight told him that the man still stood in his allotted place holding his bid, but his eyes lied.

  A voice spoke in his ear, real but impossible, saying, “You will serve Him or no one!” Stunned within his gathering, Ilion searched for the speaker in the empty space between here and there. There was nothing. Again, he heard a wavering tongue speaking in his ear, “Deny Him at your peril, M’Ilion. One transgression and I will hunt you all the days of your life.”

  Wonder and anger filled Ilion. Who dares to threaten me, let alone while I stand in the midst of a throng of people, at bid? The impression of vagueness surrounding the Falcon follower remained, though Ilion no longer believed it. Who or what is my competition?

  “Four thousand six hundred forty, four thousand six hundred sixty, and we have a winner at four thousand six hundred sixty sabals.”

  What? Shocked slightly, Ilion looked over to see the old, gray cloak turning away from the mound and carefully merging again into the crowd. True, he had won the bid, but then there never was any doubt in his mind on that outcome. Regrettably, that meant Ilion had to pay his bid and collect the winning lot of staves instead of chasing that ancient, feeble man and telling Old Falcon in no uncertain terms where his mind magic would end up if he ever tried to influence another bidding in Dressarna.