For the first time since he had agreed to try and help the bereaved couple, Madrenga heard Bieracol speak. Behind a great silvery froth of a beard, behind sheepdog-like eyebrows sufficiently wooly they threatened to block his vision, the husband of Elenna and father of Elenacol expressed his gratitude.
“When my wife told me what she had learned of you, I thought you had little chance of success, given your self-evident youth and professed inexperience in such matters. Kakran-mul is a turd in the catbox of life from which the smell cannot be erased.” A beaming smile emerged from behind the cloud of whiskers. “I am pleased to see how wrong I was about you, and your abilities. Clearly you are accomplished beyond your years.” Before the lavishly praised Madrenga could reply the old man opened his arms to embrace his daughter. “I feared you might be lost to us forever, my dear one!”
Dissolving into a swirl of silver-flecked smoke, Elenacol did not so much embrace her father as envelop him. It was an all-encompassing hug the likes of which no human could duplicate. She was not just in his arms, but in all of him. Despite having previously witnessed the girl’s transformation from smoke into flesh, Madrenga was no less enthralled to observe the reverse. He smiled to himself. Surely whoever had coined the phrase “where there’s smoke there’s fire” must have had a delicious creature like Elenacol in mind. The ride back from Kakran-mul’s compound had provided ample proof of that particular truism.
Turning away from her father, the column of slowly spinning vapor drifted toward Elenna. Having already battled the undead in order to rescue an enchantment, Madrenga was less astonished than he otherwise might have been when the mother now dissolved into a cold mist. Mother and daughter were both smoke sprites.
They twisted and twined about one another in a sooty ballet that bespoke spells and sorcery unknown. Their physical manifestations notwithstanding, there was nothing of the dark arts about their reunion. Theirs was not the smokiness of burnt offerings, of sacrifices unwilling, or ruined homes, or forest-ravaging fires. It was the domesticated smoke that rises from flames that warm hearth and home, that adds savory to fine meats or puffs contentedly from well-worn, hand-rubbed pipes. As they whirled past, spinning and dancing about one another, suddenly there were four of them. He blinked.
No, not four. It was the same two, mother and daughter. The illusion arose from the transformation of the father, one which to Madrenga’s amazed eyes was more striking than that which had overtaken the two women.
Where Bieracol had sat on the front seat of the tall wagon there now stood a vaguely humanoid figure that appeared to be sheathed in reflective glory. It took Madrenga a moment or two to analyze and discard all possibilities save the most obvious. Mother and daughter were born of smoke. Father Bieracol, on the other hand, was a mirror sprite. The second pair of women he thought he had glimpsed were reflections of wife and daughter not just in the father’s eye, but in his whole torso.
This family was not, then, members of some debased nobility. It made perfect sense that such beings would be successful dealers in precious metals, as Elenna had told him when first she had taken him into her confidence. They dealt, as it was, in what they were.
Eventually the family’s unreserved joy at their successful reunion began to subside. Elenna and her daughter resumed their human form and, upon reflection, Bieracol did likewise.
“We owe you more than we can say.” Bowing slightly in Madrenga’s direction, Elenna lowered her eyes, as did her husband and daughter. His embarrassment at this display of deference was equally unrestrained.
“Is there nothing we can give you?” Accomplishing the seemingly impossible, Elenacol managed to be both solemn and coquettish as she spoke these words. If any further confirmation of what she was suggesting was necessary, the look in her eyes provided eloquent punctuation.
“I …” He swallowed, uncertain how exactly to respond. “I have everything I need. Food, enough money to help me over any rough patches, and my companions. Though I was reluctant at first, I’m glad now that I was able to help you. Having no family of my own, I think I understand better than most how important it is to keep one together if you are fortunate enough to have one.”
“In truth,” Bieracol murmured, “you are not as young as you claim.”
Madrenga looked away, discomfited by the praise in the man’s voice and expression. “Sometimes circumstances force one to grow up faster than one would wish.”
“You must take something.” Elenna was insistent. “Even if only a small memento, so that you will not forget us.”
“We certainly will not forget you.” This time Elenacol’s eyes were challenging as well as offering. Did she realize, he wondered, that despite his size he was younger than her? It was a scary notion. Did the age difference not matter to her? That was an even more frightening thought. It was as much to escape her burning stare as to please her mother that he allowed Elenna to lead him into the interior of the wagon. Despite his apparent compliance he had no intention of taking anything more than a trifle.
We lost everything save this wagon and its poor contents, the mother had informed him yesterday. What he had told her just now was the truth. He felt that he did have everything he needed. Willingly offered memento or not, he was not about to impose on this impoverished family.
As it developed, her interpretation of “poor” differed somewhat from his. But then, he managed to tell himself through his shock as he gaped at the previously covered bottom portion of the wagon’s interior, it was to be expected that a human’s definition of certain things might differ to some degree from that of a family of sprites.
When, riding hard to escape the pursuing citizens of Hamuldar and he had first come up on the wagon in the darkness, he had wondered idly how such a tall vehicle kept from toppling over. He imagined it must contain in its lowermost compartments a certain amount of stone or lead ballast. Ballast there was in abundance, but it was not composed of river rock or lead ingots.
Gold coin stamped with images and insignia from lands whose names he knew not gleamed from openings in heavy cloth bags designed to keep their contents from spilling. Wide-mouthed buckets overflowed with cut gems: diamond and ruby, sapphire and crysoberyl, emerald and opal and dragoneye. Keeping it all from shifting, the bags and pans were held in place by lengths of metal siding fashioned from alloyed gold. The bolts that held the siding together were made of dropped platinum. Elenna’s words echoed in his mind.
“You must take something.”
The family’s gratitude was unbounded. He could empty the pack that lay across Orania’s spine and fill it with enough gold and jewels to buy his own kingdom. Well, perhaps not a kingdom, but a private compound that would make the merchant Kakran-mul’s look like an outhouse by comparison. The scroll he was charged with delivering—it was just a scroll. A simple message. When it failed to arrive, another might be sent, carried by another courier as callow and innocent as himself—though he was less innocent now than he had been when first he had set out from Harup-taw-shet.
Except … except … growing up poor and without family there had been little to call his own. His prize possessions had been his pup, his pony, and his honor. What would the first two think of him if he so impetuously discarded the third?
They would think nothing of it, he told himself. Dog and horse now, they would be happy with his company and with food and water. Honor was an abstract concept of human invention. It meant nothing to a dog or a horse. Wasn’t that right? Was that not what any scholar or wise man would tell him if he posed them the question?
Abandon his mission and take the fortune, he told himself. You can easily look into the eyes of Bit and Orania afterward and not look away. Just as you will be able to look into a mirror and do the same. Won’t you? Can’t you?
“You are wrong,” he told the waiting Elenna. “I am not nearly as mature and experienced as you believe. As proof of it, I will take only the memento you suggest, to remind me of a family that I helped but to which I do not belong.”
She responded with a maternal smile, the edges of which seemed to coil and twist upward independent of the rest of her mouth. Then she came forward, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him tight, the side of her face pressing into his chest. When she stepped back he had to bite his lower lip to hold in the tears that threatened to seriously interfere with the warrior image he had so recently propounded.
“We can be your family,” she told him. “Even at a distance, even if you never see us again. Then you can say to any who ask that you have a family.”
His throat hurt. “A poor family that has lost nearly everything, yes.”
The look on her face warmed his soul more than could any fire. That was not surprising, arising as it did from a smoke sprite.
“So now you have a family, Madrenga.” She indicated the luminous mass of ballast. “Is that not worth more than any quantity of cut rock and forged metal?”
“No. Yes.” He was confused, and knowing how frequently confusion led to one making bad decisions, he bent forward and reached for one of the open bins. As promised, he took only a single memento to remind him of his encounter with the family Col. That it happened to be a bright pink diamond the size of plum was merely coincidental. After all, he told himself as he straightened and pocketed the gem, he had promised to pick something.
He rode with the family of sprites a while longer, until finally their course diverged from his. The time spent with them allowed him the continued company of Bieracol, from whom he learned something of other lands and cultures; of Elenna, from whom he learned about valuable metals and stones; and of Elenacol, from whom he learned everything she could teach him whenever they could escape the notice of her parents.
Eventually, however, their route took them westward once again while his mission (if not his destiny) demanded that he ride east. Daria, as Chief Counselor Natoum had informed him, lay across the Sea of Shadows. To reach it he would have to take ship, which meant presenting himself at a suitable harbor. This would not be as simple as booking travel for one passenger since Bit and, more awkwardly, Orania would also be accompanying him. Having thus far spent little of the Council’s money, he was certain that with time and the proper inquiries he would be able to secure transportation both for him and for his companions.
Though the ride from where he said farewell to his adopted family on down through the last of the mountains to the coast was long and hard, memories of Elenacol helped to shorten the journey in spirit as well as in distance.
Charrush was the biggest city he had ever seen, perhaps even larger than Harup-taw-shet. It was impossible to accurately compare the two because the harbor metropolis spread out in both directions along the coastline and disappeared to the north and south. Whether the outlying population considered themselves part of the urban area he did not know and could not tell. Unlike Harup-taw-shet, no great defensive wall encircled the metropolis. One minute he was descending the mountain road through forested hills and the next he found himself riding past extensive farms and through small villages. The structures that comprised the latter grew gradually taller and more dense until he was no longer in town but in a city.
The larger structures, some towering as high as the great astronomical observatory in the palace complex of Harup-taw-shet, loomed over the streets much as the fabled needle trees of distant Haxun overshadowed the apple and narfruit orchards of that northern land. Slowing Orania to a walk, he gave her the lead and relaxed, letting his mount go where she wished while he took in his new surroundings. There was more activity here, more stress and bustle, than could be found back home even on market day. Charrush was a conurbation founded on commerce rather than dynasty. Of the city’s elite he knew nothing. Doubtless any passing citizen or visiting tradesman could fill him in on the local politics, but he was reluctant to display his ignorance.
Then Orania came to a halt and he forgot all about commerce and cliques, kings and crossroads. She had stopped because she had run out of land.
They had emerged onto the flat paved surface of a small triangular bastion. Protruding out into the harbor, its face was revetted with cut stone and slanted landward. An ancient fortification, it stood now devoid of armament because the harbor had been greatly extended and expanded by the addition of a vast breakwater that paralleled the shore. The city’s defenses were now located much farther out, at the entrance to the expanded harbor.
So this is the sea, he thought as he stared eastward toward the flattest horizon he had ever seen. It was bigger than he had anticipated. Ships rigged lateen and square made their way in and out of the wide harbor mouth, bound for destinations whose names he did not know and whose languages he could not speak. Only one he knew: Daria. His destination was all he needed to know. But someday, another day, perhaps …
Orania shook her head and snorted.
“I know I’m dreaming, girl. And I know you’re hungry. For that matter, so am I. I need to arrange passage, but first things first. Let’s see if we can find you a nice stable and something to eat.”
It developed that there were many such facilities, built more to service supply wagons and carts than individual visitors. That did not mean their proprietors were unwilling to take money from a traveler who was not bent on trade. Leaving Orania in the care of a stablemaster who struck Madrenga as less disposed to larceny than the first two he had encountered, he started walking north up the main street that fronted the docks in search of an establishment that could provide him and Bit with suitable sustenance. Tongue lolling, the dog trotted alongside. The canine’s ebullient manner notwithstanding, other pedestrians gave them both a wide berth. Madrenga would have been surprised and uncomfortable to learn that his own appearance had been altered to the point where it too was beginning to intimidate passersby.
As he worked his way up the avenue, ships and boats to his left and a solid line of shops to his right, it rapidly became clear to him that while Harup-taw-shet had its share of antisocial elements and individuals of low mien, Charrush was a much tougher place. Men and women of every shape and shade jostled with swarthy Harunds and slender Selndars from over the sea. He had heard tales of such semi-human folk but until now had never set eyes on such.
Harunds, he saw, walked with a distinctive side-to-side motion, throwing left or right hip forward at an angle with each step of their lurching gait. Rough as horsehair, their flowing manes and beards swallowed much of their faces. Broad, flattened nostrils were hidden deep within their facial hair while the smaller third eye in their foreheads invariably peered straight ahead. They were a muscular people, short of leg and short of words, with powerful arms and broad chests. A noteworthy assortment of weaponry was visible dangling from wide leather belts. Axes, clubs, maces hinted at a fighting style devoid of subtlety. Not a people to cross, Madrenga told himself as he walked on.
In contrast, the Selndars appeared to flow rather than walk along the street. Their clothing was elegant; fine-spun and soft, and they carried rapiers rather than axes or broadswords. They were as hairless as the Harund were hirsute, their skulls gleaming with polish and painted design. Their eyes were wide and narrow, the faces of male and female alike elongated and feminine. High-pitched conversation hinted at sarcasm and contempt though he could not understand the words they spoke in their own tongues. Of the latter there was a pair, each capable of joint or independent movement. No wonder their language was so complex and capable of such a variety of sound. There were other sentients present, but in addition to his own kind it was Harund and Selndar who stood out among the crowd.
Working the waterfront was a vast and varied hodgepodge of tricksters, vendors, fraudsters, accountants, recruiters, touts, and whores. The bewildering babble found him prone to distraction, especially by some of the females (and the occasional male) who leaned out of the upper floor windows of certain establishments. Flaunting their goods, these individuals were engaged in the purveyance of merchandise as transitory as it was pleasurable. The various appendages and protuberances they were making available for public purview put him in mind of similar neighborhoods in Harup-taw-shet. When younger he had frequently passed through them, though without awareness of what such sights represented. Now that he understood, he was old enough to be almost as interested in them as in food.
Forcing himself to look away, he resumed scanning the line of shop fronts for one offering the simple food to which his innards were accustomed. While he would have liked to sample local cuisine, it would not do to fall ill his first day in town. Insofar as was possible, where his stomach was concerned, he would stick to the familiar.
He finally settled on one of the smaller establishments fronting the harbor. Not because it looked particularly inviting, or famous, or cheap, but because the flow of customers coming and going was steady, and those who were coming out looked more content than those who were going in.
Once inside he found himself in an exceptionally narrow, long room. Off to his right was a bar, on his left a line of tables, and a single passageway between. The bar stopped before it reached the front of the business, allowing for half a dozen tables to be positioned in front of the large window that looked out on the busy street and the harbor. Finding one unoccupied he sat himself down, pushed the tip of his sword’s scabbard to the rear and out of the way, and waited. Mistakenly judging his age by his size, the attractive young woman who arrived to take his order eyed him with more than casual interest. Flattered and trying not to blush beneath her uncompromisingly direct stare, he did nothing to disabuse her of her misconception.
“What’s on for today?” he asked, doing his best to lower his voice.
She was not put off by the artificiality of his effort. “What would you like to be on the menu?”
Having little experience at this sort of gender-denominated badinage, he hastened to get out of the semantic hole that was threatening to expand beneath him. “Something to eat,” he told her, adding nervously, “fish would be nice. Do you have fish?”
She stared at him uncertainly, with great deliberation turned to look at the ships docked in the harbor just across the street, then returned her gaze to his.
“I mean,” he explained as quickly as he could, “that I come from far inland and fresh fish is something I don’t get too often.” Or at all, he mused uneasily.
She was standing close enough for him to smell her perfume. Then he realized she wasn’t wearing any perfume. She finally decided that despite his striking appearance this traveler was a bit too odd to pursue comfortably.
“We have cod baked in rice paper, some fresh tuna with lemon and lime, and I think there might be a piece of steamed gorelfin. Potato with it, if you wish.”
Struggling in search of an urbane reply, he found only a vast and indifferent blankness. “How—how does your cook prepare the potato?”
“Baked.” She had plainly lost interest. He didn’t know whether to be insulted or relieved. “Or you can have it baked. Or if you prefer, baked.”
He nodded. “Gorelfin. With—potato.” Of the three fish she had described, gorelfin was the only name known to him.
“Excellent choice.” Leaning slightly to her left she looked behind him. Bit lay there on his right side, front legs fully extended, his back pressed up against the wall. “If your dog makes noise you’ll have to leave.”
“I promise he’ll be quiet. He’s as tired as I am, and he’ll nap while I eat. He won’t bother anyone.”
“That’s good.” She turned away, blue skirt flouncing, cleavage rippling. “Because if he was any bigger the owner would demand that you stable him.”
Madrenga was as good as his word and Bit as quiet as his master’s claim. When it arrived on a wooden plank, the pink-fleshed fish smelled of butter and onions and spices the youth did not recognize. Studying the steaming, unexpectedly elaborate repast, Madrenga wondered if he had been sensible in his choice of dining establishments. The exterior of the one in which he now sat had given no hint of the gourmand’s delight to be found within.
Unused to such rich food, he ate slowly and carefully. With every third or fourth bite he glanced up to see if the serving wench was looking in his direction. As near as he could tell, she never did. After a while, he gave up checking in favor of devoting his full attention to the consumption of every bit of the excellent gorelfin. Choice morsels like the fins and head he passed to an eager Bit.
He was more than halfway through the meal when the two men approached. Swallowing, he sat back and dabbed at his lips with the heavy cloth napkin that had accompanied the food. It was the first time in his life he had utilized such a piece of sanitary dining fabric, whose purpose he had divined from observing his fellow diners.
He was rescued from any further uncertainties regarding local custom when the smaller of the two men started speaking. It struck Madrenga that the speaker was not looking at him but past him.
“That’s quite an animal you’ve got there, young gentleman.”
Madrenga glanced reflexively down at Bit. “You’re half right, sir. I’m no gentleman.”
“You eat like one,” commented the other. “Utensils instead of fingers.”
The youth smiled. “I always try to imitate the best of what’s around me. If you’re wondering about Bit, he’s not for sale.”
“Oh no, lad, no!” The smaller, older man raised his hands. “Wouldn’t think of it. Probably couldn’t afford it. Just wanted to compliment you on what a fine figure of a dog you got.”
Noting that his master had ceased eating or, more importantly, sharing food, Bit yawned and rolled over on his back.
“Fine dog, yes.” The other man was staring at Bit and nodding to himself.
His companion leaned forward and winked. “Want to make some easy money, lad?”
Effecting an urbanity that was alien to him, Madrenga shrugged. “I’m always ready to make some easy money. How, exactly, might that worthy end be achieved?”
Straightening, the speaker jerked his head toward the rear of the establishment. “There’s something of a beauty contest taking place out back o’ Jorklin’s place. Critter culture, one might call it. Your animal there would win by simply showing up.”
A man of few words, his companion chimed in. “Win prize for biggest dog, anyway. For surely so!”
Madrenga pondered. What did he have to lose? Unless there was some sort of outrageous entry fee. On the other hand, if these two apparently stalwart, upstanding, but perhaps none-too-bright citizens were telling the truth, there might indeed be easy money to be made. Certainly there was no harm in checking out their story.
He desired to leave a little extra money for she who had served him. It did not occur to him to leave it on the table, of course. Doing so would invite its instant disappearance at the hands of fellow diners. He didn’t see her as his helpful guides led him through the establishment and toward an opening at the back. Perhaps she was presently in the kitchen collecting food for other hungry diners, he told himself. He would do better to try and catch her on the way out.
The narrow dining area opened into a large rectangular yard walled in by high wooden planks set close together. There were indeed other dogs present, but they seemed even to Madrenga’s unpracticed eye ill-suited to a canine beauty contest of any kind. Moreover, the yard was filled to claustrophobia with a surging, excited, loud mob of mostly men among which was sprinkled a few women. Harunds were also present in number, though Madrenga saw no Selndars. What he did see, as his guides alternately pushed and pulled him forward, was a deep circular depression that had been excavated in the center of the treeless yard. The bottom of the depression was filled with sand doubtless hauled in from a nearby beach. Suggesting the presence of a high water table, a third of the sand was stained dark from …
It wasn’t from seeping water. The small hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. A contest was indeed in progress here, but it had nothing to do with beauty—unless one allowed that the two locals urging him to participate had a definition of the term very different from his own. He supposed there were mental types who might find a kind of perverse beauty in what took place below. As for himself, he saw only the opposite. Uncosmopolitan though he might be, Madrenga could recognize a fighting pit when he saw one.
Just as he could recognize stains that had been made by blood.