Into the Raging Mountains Page 4

  Holding the staves, one in his hand, three others in the improvised sack he made from the three red blankets, he strode out of the courtyard and the Dome of Angels, accompanied by the gentle clacking of the silver bangles loosely wrapped in maroon fabric. The supreme arrogance, Ilion thought. What was that drivel Old Falcon said during the bidding? Something about You will serve Him. What in the three hellprisons of Drogos is that supposed to mean?

  Ilion became more and more cross. Mind games and mind magic made him react viciously, intensely wary subconsciously. Whorehouse amusement games and tricks, novice charlatans and deceivers—all practitioners of such mummery were wholly untrustworthy. How dare Old Falcon intrude, mouthing words of empty threats and demands!

  Victorious, thirsty, and irked, Ilion shifted the weight of the remaining staves on his shoulder, and sauntered over to the shade of his favorite ale merchant, the Gurgling Dove. Conveniently located only three shop doors from the entrance to the Dome of Angels, he was not only a frequent visitor but also part-owner. Owning a share meant good alcohol, access to a friendly atmosphere and a perpetual reservation at the cool back table against the thick stone wall of the fortress. The side returns were also a win-win situation.

  Ducking under the canopy, unloading the staves to lean against the back wall, Ilion seated himself with some grace. His standard drink was on the table before he had straightened his shirt. As the cool rose ale floated serenely down his throat to his appreciative stomach, a state of bliss shone on the horizon.

  Deftly reaching behind him, his arm snagged one of the four staves of Thenta. Bringing it forward with a dancer’s grace, he held it across his lap, admiring its workmanship. Its wood was of the lightest color, almost honey-white, carved strong and straight as a rod. It was topped with an entwined spiral, interlacing, pierced in an elaborate honeycomb. Ilion was amazed at the intricacies and adeptness of carving lovingly shown in the masterwork.

  What did the priests of the secretive goddess of thieves and illusion need with staves anyway? Probably for some dark ritual Ilion would have to forfeit his life or freedom to uncover. Delving into the sacred of any religion seemed to be an unspoken invitation to disaster and burdensome obligations. Truly, the sooner the awkward lot of stolen goods reached their new buyer, the better Ilion would feel. Not that it would hurt his pocket any: a good day’s work. Ilion would wait at the Dove until daysend when his anonymous client would send a messenger with the agreed-upon payment plus ten percent. Ilion lifted the mug to his lips and swallowed the cool sweetness.

  *

  No one was more surprised than Ilion when the thieves struck.

  *

  Just a few sands past the setting sun, as Ilion reclined comfortably on his stool, surveying all the coming and goings of the eventide bar business, she entered. Dressed in a cloak of fine, green cloth, silver necklace gleaming with the glow of newly-lit torches, Ilion watched her specifically, as did every other man in the room. Who could not look? No fool, Ilion considered for a moment that she might be the messenger he was waiting for.

  Then as she sashayed to the counter of the establishment, auburn braid peeking from under the full hood, their eyes met for a moment. Her eyes passed on, as if she had found him wanting. At the greeting of the drinktender, she requested a full glass of Tamborinton amber fire, not the code words he had been hoping to hear. While he admired her from afar, Ilion knew then that she wasn’t part of the scheduled exchange and only gave her passing attention after that. Scanning the dooropening again, he waited.

  A sharp cry of dismay came from Green Girl as she dropped the liquid-filled glass with clumsiness and agitation. Caught in the drama of the spilled liquor, Ilion almost missed the moving shadow on the wall at his side. A hand was reaching for the staves.

  He turned to fight, one hand on the staff still resting against the table. Something wooden and heavy hit his head. He felt a sharp pain, saw dancing lights, and weirdly concentric rings of red-orange vapors spiraling down into an unconscious void.

  Exactly how long he floated there was unclear. As awareness gained victory over emptiness, his first action was to gather. Pulling his energy from all parts of his body, he held his mental focus at the stomach pulsepoint. Ilion still felt separated from his physical self, although he heard foreign words whispered across the dark.

  “Only three!? Only three? Only three?” The words echoed within the space between heartbeats.

  Opening his eyes, he felt gingerly towards the back of his head, encountering a mat of oozing blood and hair. Close one, that. Spilt ale soaked his shirtfront. Someone wants the staves bad enough to kill.

  Death was an old friend, but not a guest he expected at his own table just yet. Anger rose in his throat. Someone is incredibly careless. That confused Ilion even more.

  Murder did not sit well in Dressarna. The Thieves Guild made it their business to stop short of lifestealing except in defense, although Thieves skilled in offensive battle were thought slippery and formidable. The Guild tolerated the use of poisons to weaken an opponent, but outright murder was a death sentence for the culprit. The Guild maintained its enforced truce with a necessary ironfist in peacetime, unmerciful and swift. Known murderers could not long survive, seeing as how everyone was a possible informant. Whoever had knocked Ilion on the head either had the highest levels of permission to kill or was incredibly inept.

  Lying on the ground where he had fallen unconscious, Ilion surveyed the shadows of the bottom of his tabletop. As he tried to rise, dizziness swooped in. Even the Dome of Angels did not have gongs as loud as those echoing in Ilion’s battered head. Because the corner was dark, and Green Girl had provided such a distraction, no one had yet noticed his weakened state. Probably no witnesses to the theft either, Drogos damn!

  Looking over to his sprawled arms, he noticed with surprise that the honey-white staff still lay in his grasp. “Only three?” the voice had said in the middle of the attack. They only needed three staves? Or they only found three? Ilion’s head spun, his thoughts crumpled bits of scrap paper weakly sticking to his skull. Kind of them to leave me with a walking stick after the gentle bludgeoning.

  Centering the fire of his spirit in his spinning brain, Ilion again attempted to rise. Crawling up the chair, the injured man looked around the establishment, preparing himself for continued attack. None came. There were only empty chairs and polished tables around his location. Adjusting his senses, Ilion looked for his attackers in the shadows and heavy curtains. He found only the chatter of custom as patrons drank away their cares and their wallets.

  Is the brutal thief still here? Dizzy and angry at the same time, he judged that from the general state of things not much time had passed. A wave of disgust filled his mouth. A well-planned theft never takes long.

  Life had continued while he was out of commission, for Drogos knew how long. Green Girl was still at the drinkstand, sipping her new mug of amber fire while old Taleth wiped the jugs clean behind the stand and was assisting a new customer. Holding the remaining staff across his thighs, he heard Green Girl request another drink, this time a cool rose ale. The code words he was looking for, regrettably a few moments too late.

  Motioning to the present server, he ordered another cool rose ale for himself. It was a refill at this point, since his first drink was long drained between his thirst on arrival and the blundering theft. Green Girl looked at him again, measuring. Taking her ale from Taleth, she walked to his table.

  “Praises to Thenta, you look well today,” she said. All the while, her eyes took in the ash of his skin and his distressed clothing and hair. Having exchanged the agreed upon codes, Ilion sighed. Where to begin?

  “It’s no good, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” she answered curtly.

  Matter-of-factly, he pointed out the obvious. “The staves aren’t here.”

  Her wide hazel eyes narrowed. “I always knew you were shrewd. Your reputation precedes you. Of course, you are holding out for a bigger p
urse.”

  He tried shaking his head, to a stab of pain. Only Ilion’s gathering abilities stopped him from vomiting.

  “No. Right after you waltzed in, ordered your amber fire and choked, someone clubbacked me and took the items.” Chagrin colored his words. “Looks like I just bought a really expensive lot of fabric and bracelets.”

  “Took them?” Eyebrows arched on her pretty face. “Just now? I saw no one.” Looking around the interior of the Gurgling Dove, she continued waspishly, “I am no novice to be fooled by these feeble attempts, Ilion. Certainly, no one has entered or left here since I arrived except the Gogonat axeman the barman is helping now.”

  Ilion looked over and recognized the familiar skins of the Gogonat tribe but not the wearer, shaking his head. Gogonats are everywhere lately. A fork of sharp pain went through his temples, followed by a flash of white stars.

  “It’s simple really, just tell your employer that the deal is off. I don’t know where the staves are. Though you can be assured, I will certainly find out. He needn’t get involved. When I have secured them and someone answers for this attack, I will contact him in the usual way,” Ilion replied with a confidence that had secured secretive transactions in the past.

  Again, she gave him a measuring look from eyes of steel. “I think you are lying, sir. I am most certain of it. Drinking too much has a way of ruining even the finest of men. Your eyes don’t agree with your story.

  “Why do you want the staves of Thenta? Is there a second buyer? I assure you my employer will pay your fair wage.” Tapping her fingers gently against her lower lip, she stood there expectantly, refusing to be deterred or dissuaded.

  He looked back at her commanding gaze, matching stare for stare. Tense moments followed. Ilion wasn’t certain what capabilities he had left. The injury to his head throbbed behind his eyeballs, a blazing fire.

  Finally the Green Girl grunted her disgust. With venom dripping from every tooth, she bit her words carefully, sinking her will into his resistance: “I cannot return with empty hands.”

  Ilion shook his head, a painful action he immediately regretted. The woman had a serious amount of drive and ambition, which he could almost admire. Any other nightfall he would have stood up and walked out the entrance, licking his wounds. Not certain he could make it to the dooropening let alone to his retreat, Ilion sat at the table, feeling cornered, bruised, and battered, not that he let any of that show on his face.

  Green Girl continued to sit across from him, denying him his liberty with her scorn. A light came on in his slow-thinking, mushy brain. He realized he had again overlooked the remaining staff. It would probably buy him some time with this fierce woman, time he apparently would need. Messengers were not normally this committed to a simple transaction. As he began to speak, she silenced him with a threat combined with sugar.

  “I must have those staves. If you do not give them to me now, I will consent to bargain a higher price with my employer but I must have them in my hands before the season ends. You have four full days to ‘recover’ them or I will slit your throat.”

  Eyes narrowing, she continued bluntly, “I will not be stolen from! A little greed is fine, but take care that I get that lot or…” she paused, leaning closer. With a breath that was at once familiar and soft, she finished, “you will never see your death coming.”

  Unable to stop the building nausea, Ilion nodded. It shouldn’t take that long to hunt down his attacker. He appreciated that Green Girl meant business, but the death threat was a little much and a clear indication of her weakness. While my injury plagues me …

  “What a tiresome conversation.” He coolly remarked, nonplussed.

  Countering his asperity with a large dose of sarcasm, Green Girl replied, “Well, it’s best I leave you to ‘secure’ the staves. I am sure you can do so with little difficulty.” With those words thrown in disgust at Ilion, Green Girl rose and walked with purpose out the door opening. Every man’s eye followed her, lost in the smooth shift of cloth over supple body.

  With everyone else, he watched her leave. It was the most pleasurable part of a singularly unsatisfying encounter. What should have been the calm and ordered end of a day of oddities was instead a nightfall full of unanswered questions.

  Ilion ordered three pints of cool rose ale and considered his options. Then he drank some more ale, and sat there perplexed and injured, scowling at the bar.

  Blinking his eyelids against the growing wave of weakness, he watched the Gogonat down tankard upon tankard, so vast was his northern thirst. Cheap ale flowed down his bushy whiskers, wiped away with a skinned sleeve. As the Gogonat warrior let loose with a rumbling belch, he repositioned himself on the floor leaning against the counter wall. He sang songs of loss and bravery.

  Taking several sands to gather what little energy he had left, Ilion sat still as stone. Finally, putting down his jug, Ilion carefully arose, his current walking stick assisting him. It was just the beginning of a long nightfall with much planning to do. He nodded to old Taleth, and stepped out into the darkness of Dressarna. As the cool air hit his lungs he swore. Someone will answer for this!

  *

  Awareness came with the fall of morning sunlight on her hair, dancing through the window. Curtains moving softly with a small breeze, the repetitive thumping of the knotted windowcord called Alizarin to awaken. As she breathed in with the first stretching breath, glancing around she realized she was not in her bed nor even in her bedroom. Looking at the stones of the firesplace, clutching her blanket to her, she attempted to sort out her location. Realization flooded in.

  Sorrow welled up from her sore heart through her scratched throat and emerged as a grievous wailing sound. “Mother! Mother, what happened to you?” Her whispered query fell with her tears on the hard-packed ground.

  Great bottomless sadness and shock seemed to battle each other for her dominant conscious emotion. No more could she hope her dear Trellista would appear, would return to their simple life together. No more was she a child. Abandoned, and now orphaned, Alizarin was truly alone.

  Attempting to stand, she could not. In her collapsed sleep, she had pinned one of her legs, cutting off the blood. Now it would not hold Alizarin’s weight and felt log-like in its numbness. Sitting on the floor clutching her soft blanket, the overwhelmed girl wiped away renewed tears from her nose and cheeks.

  Startled, she looked again at her blanket and saw it was not her new saffron cloak, but the soft gray traveling cloak of her mother. Grasping it tightly to her chest, there were no words. Even in death, her mother had left her a protection from the dreary nighftall cold. It was a noble and fitting present as a mother’s last gift to a well-loved daughter.

  Remembering the dreadful events that had transpired in their house in the middle of darkness, Alizarin looked around for the objects left by her mother. What had fallen, again? Where are the dragon comb and the sapphire? Searching around her, she spied the cornflower-blue sapphire which lay discarded where it had come to rest from her unconscious hand, just an arms-reach away. The silver-and-diamond dragon comb was nowhere to be seen.

  As the tingling in her leg began to become painful, Alizarin attempted to stand with some assistance from the nearby wooden chair. As she put light pressure on the clumsy, newly-awakened leg, the blood flow increasing, Alizarin continued to look around the room for the comb. Not on the mantle, not on the tabletop. In a tiny cottage, it can’t be difficult to find anything.

  Swinging her leg to hurry the blood return, Alizarin cautiously stepped on her weakened limb while placing most of her weight braced on the tabletop with her shoulders. She tentatively stepped once, and then with continued confidence, stepped again. There. All better. That was a relief.

  Walking slowly through the bedroom dooropening, she looked on the floor, dresser, and bed, even under the bed linens, but the comb was not in the cottage. Puzzled, she picked up the gemstone and placed it on her bedroom shelf. Turning back out to search the main room, Alizarin saw t
he shaft of sunlight that had awakened her streaming through the open curtains, and gasped. Mother’s shop!

  Oh, No! I slept through the nightfall and missed the sunrise opening!

  Panic gave speed to her feet, as comb forgotten, Alizarin grabbed her new cloak, and ran for the dooropening. Slipping her shoes on outside, she raced for the road. Scarcely breathing, mind racing with shortcuts to arrive at the shop faster, and the quickest ways to get the bread rising, she flat out sprinted.

  The stall merchants were already wheeling and dealing, and perspiring from the rising heat of the day as she passed the open market. Crowds of women and servants clotted the stalls and shanties, spilling out into the open roadway. Still, knowledgeable as she was of the people and structures across her path, she managed to bypass most of the foot traffic. Running breathlessly to Sunbaked, she unlocked the door in one swift practiced turn. Alizarin took instant stock of her remaining possibilities for baking to avoid having a total loss for the day’s work.

  Taking a deep breath and a large drink of cool well water, she dove into her proofed loaves from the night before, now well past their strongest rise. Soon, she had filled the oven with sourdough bread loaves, cookies with nuts and dried tart fruits, and three Light of Paradise cakes. She wiped the sweat from her hairline with the day’s kitchen cloth, and looked at the orders for the day. Shuffling the distribution of baked goods, she would be caught up with sunrise orders by midday. After all the initial combustion of work from her late arrival, in the end, the yeast had to rise and the dough had to bake. No way to shortcut that time.

  Cleaning around the shop, punching down new loaves, talking to customers eager for their breads, she was still taken by surprise somewhat at the interchange that initially occurred when the newest customer walked into the bakery. Taking in his torn cloak, and his tan tunic soaked with stale sweat and reeking of old ale, Alizarin hoped this was going to be a quick transaction.