Dragonspell: The Southern Sea

‘Does elven skin make good leather? Let us most profoundly hope that Nevyn never finds out about this little show, or the question will be put to the test. But don’t you see, Jill, how perfect this’ll be? Our enemies won’t suspect a thing, because they won’t believe for a moment that anyone would show off real dweomer in the marketplace.’ He rubbed his hands together in glee, making a small fountain of silver flames. ‘Now, let’s see … aha, you can be my beauteous barbarian handmaiden. Come see the fair Jillanna, a savage princess of far-off Deverry! See how she carries a sword like a man! You’ll be a draw in and of your lovely self.’

‘My very humble thanks. I suppose it’s better than being known as your fancy lad.’

Salamander wiped his smile away and considered her for a moment.

‘I’m sorry, Jill. I know your heart is sick with worry. It’s a hard quest we’re on, but we’ll save Rhodry yet. Try not to brood.’

‘Not brood? Ye gods, with him in the hands of the Hawks of the Brotherhood?’

‘He may not be that, remember. Snilyn the pirate was as clear as clear, they were going to leave him alive and then sell him.’

‘So they told Snilyn.’

‘Well, true spoken.’

Cold fear swept between them like another wind from the sea. With a dog-like shudder Salamander roused himself from what threatened to be despair.

‘Let me amuse you, my turtledove. The Great Krysello had best practise his astounding repertoire of marvels.’

As it turned out, with the aid of the Wildfolk of Fire and Aethyr Salamander could put on an amazing show of true magic disguised as false. He sent balls of blue fire dancing, sheets of red flame drifting, sparks glittering down in fire-falls and miniature lightning bolts shooting and blazing. In the dark, the show would be absolutely dazzling. Once he had his visual effects coming easily, he added snaps, booms, crashes, and sizzles, courtesy of the Wildfolk of the Air. At the end, he threw a golden fire-fall up far above his head and made miniature thunder roll as it came cascading down. As the booms died away, there came a timid knock on the door. When Jill opened it, she found a white-faced pirate.

‘Oh here,’ he said, with a lick at nervous lips. ‘Be all well with you?’

‘It is. Why?’

‘We heard them noises.’

‘It was merely my master, studying his dark arts. Dare you intrude?’

With a yelp, the pirate turned and fled. As Jill shut the door, Salamander broke out into howls of wild laughter.

‘That’s the spirit,’ he said between gasps. ‘I think me this ruse will work splendidly.’

Baruma the merchant leaned onto the windowsill of his inn and looked out over the twilit city of Valanth. Far below down the hill, the last of the sunset sparkled on the broad river; here and there, lantern light bloomed in the windows of the houses or glittered among the trees of a garden. The sound of donkey-bells drifted up to him from the distant streets. On this lovely evening he was inclined to be in a good mood. Not only had he successfully finished his job for the Old One, but his own affairs were progressing well. Sewn inside the hem of his tunic was a small cache of diamonds, far more portable than gold. Although he traded in goods that couldn’t be displayed in any market or spoken of openly in any guild hall, they fetched a steep price for the man who knew where to sell them, and Baruma’s poisons were all of the highest quality. He’d personally tested them on slaves to ensure it. While he considered which of his select group of customers to visit next, he scratched his hairy stomach, idly hunting for the tiny black fleas that were one of the hazards of travelling in the islands. It was time for him to leave Bardektinna and sail across to Surtinna; his ultimate goal lay on that island, far up in the hills where the Old One lived.

When the night grew cool, Baruma closed the shutters and turned back to his chamber, a luxurious one with white walls and a blue and green tiled floor scattered with velvet cushions and set about with tiny oil-lamps. In one corner lay his travelling gear and two big canvas-wrapped bales which he never allowed out of his sight. Any customs officer who went through his goods would find heavily embroidered linen tablecloths, napkins, and decorative bands for tunics and suchlike, made by barbarians in Deverry for sale to the wealthy ladies of Bardek. Unknown to those who made them, however, once Baruma brought their work back to Bardek it underwent a subtle change. He used the various traditional patterns as labels, indicating the name of the poison in which the cloth had been soaked. Put the cloth in water or wine, and there was the poison again, safe from the prying eyes of the archon’s men.

In one of his saddle-bags he carried Rhodry’s silver dagger. He’d kept it for no real reason, more as a souvenir of those intensely pleasurable hours he’d spent breaking his prisoner’s mind and will, but it did make scrying him out easier. Out of boredom as much as anything, Baruma took it out, then sat down on an enormous cushion and centred his mind by staring into the flame of an oil-lamp. Since he was holding a semi-magical object of great meaning to Rhodry, the image built up fast. In the yellow dancing glow of the burning wick he saw Rhodry sitting near a campfire and eating stew out of a wooden bowl. Although he looked tired, he was far from exhausted, and he was unchained, unshackled, obviously a well-treated member of what seemed to be a large caravan. His flare of rage cost Baruma the Vision. That fool Brindemo! Why hadn’t he sold Rhodry to the mines or the galleys as he’d been ordered? Hardly aware of what he was doing he drove the dagger hard into the cushion.

This lapse of control forced him to his feet. As he put the dagger away it occurred to him that Brindemo was going to have to pay for his failure. The guilds would show the fat trader what happened to men who cross the will of the Dark Powers. As for Rhodry himself, since the Old One had said nothing about where he should be sold – the agony of the mines or the galleys was Baruma’s own refinement – Baruma supposed the job was done well enough. Then he remembered the threat, the cold hatred in the silver dagger’s eyes and voice as he stood on the deck of the ship and told Baruma that someday he’d escape and kill him. Just stupid braggadocio, Baruma told himself. Slaves can never escape here in Bardek. Yet he felt a cold sweep of fear up his spine. Rhodry was just the desperate sort of man who might risk everything for revenge, simply because he wouldn’t care if he lived or died after he killed his prey.

Briefly he considered tracking Rhodry down himself, but the Old One had specifically forbidden him to kill the barbarian. If Rhodry were to die, Baruma would have to ensure that no one knew of his part in it. He could, he supposed, simply buy Rhodry back from his new master and sell him to the mines himself – but the dangers of that were entirely too obvious, considering the strictness of the laws governing barbarians and slavery. The Old One posed the worse threat. If he came to consider Baruma reckless and thus no longer completely dependable, then he’d dispose of his erstwhile student in a way that made the archons’ long, slow methods of execution look merciful. He would be better off facing a loose and well-armed Rhodry than risking his teacher’s judgment. There remained, however, Brindemo’s insolence. Baruma could take some solace in seeing him well-punished.

Down near the river in Valanth, on a narrow, dead-end alley, stood a house that was crumbling into decay. The stuccoed outer walls of its compound were peeling and cracking; the courtyard within, so tangled with a garden gone riot that the ancestor statues were completely hidden. The longhouse itself had lost a good portion of the shakes on its roof, and the outer wall gapped and cracked in places. The citizens who lived nearby thought that it belonged to an old merchant who had lost both his fortune and his only son to pirates and who, thanks to the resulting madness, refused to go out or see anyone but his pair of slaves, as ancient as he. Baruma knew better. Late that night he left his inn and went to the compound, knocking on the splintery gate in a pattern of sound that few people knew.

In a few moments the gate opened a cautious crack. Lantern in hand, an aged slave peered at him.

‘I wish to speak to your master. Tell him Baruma of Adelion is here, come from Deverry.’

The slave nodded.

‘Is he in? Will he see me?’

The slave shrugged as if to say he didn’t know.

‘Answer me, you insolent fool!’

The slave opened his mouth and revealed the scarred stump of a tongue long ago cut from his mouth.

‘Huh. Well, I should have realized that. Are you allowed to show me in?’

The slave nodded a yes and ushered him into the weed-choked garden. They picked a careful way across on a path where the flagstones had cracked and tilted treacherously, then went into the house and down a musty corridor lined with cobwebbed statues – all stage dressing for the neighbours and tradesmen who might come this far in. Near the back of the house were the master’s real quarters. The slave motioned Baruma into a high-ceilinged chamber, bright with lamplight, that was furnished with cushioned furniture and red-and-gold carpets laid over the tiled floor. On one wall was a fresco showing a pony and a barbarian woman engaged in a peculiar kind of sport; he was busy examining it when he suddenly realized that he was no longer alone. He whirled around to find the master towering over him. It took all his will to keep from yelping in fear. As it was, something must have shown on his face because the master laughed. A tall man, with bluish-black skin, he was wearing a plain white tunic, and over his face was a hood of the finest red silk. Tattooed around his right wrist was a striking hawk.

‘If you were one of my pieces of work, you’d be dead, Baruma. Have you come to show me your wares? I’m most interested in seeing them.’

‘I’m honoured that you are. Perhaps we can strike a bargain, then. You see, one of the little rats who scurry at our bidding has disobeyed me. I can’t go back to Myleton to tend to the matter myself, but he needs to be punished. Not killed, mind – merely taught a painful lesson.’

‘Nothing could be easier to arrange.’ The master hesitated briefly. ‘This fool lives in Myleton, then.’

‘Brindemo the slave trader.’

‘Ah.’

In the flickering lamplight Baruma could see nothing but the coarsest silhouette of the Hawkmaster’s face through the fine silk, but he received the impression that he was being studied. The hair on the back of his neck pricked in a perfectly reasonable fear at the thought.

‘One of my men accompanied you to the barbarian kingdom,’ the master said at last. ‘I believe he was calling himself Gwin.’

‘Yes. I didn’t realize that he was attached to this particular guild.’

‘It wasn’t his place to tell you.’ There was a trace of humour in his voice. ‘He made, of course, a full report on what happened.’

Baruma’s fear deepened when he remembered the Hawk’s insolence. He was painfully aware that no one in the world knew where he was at the moment, that he could disappear forever if the Hawkmaster should choose.

‘I’m very interested in this Rhodry of Aberwyn.’ The master laced his fingertips together and seemed to be studying them. ‘Although Gwin and Merryc are convinced that he was noble-born, we know little about him. I wonder why the Old One found him so important.’

‘I wonder myself.’

There was no way of telling if the master believed him or not. After an agonizing wait of some minutes, the Hawkmaster spoke again.

‘Soon you’ll be completing the third ring of your studies, won’t you?’ His tone of voice was perfectly conversational, which was, oddly enough, more frightening than any sinister whisper or suchlike would have been. ‘A man like you could use a little backing in the Brotherhood.’

‘No doubt.’ Baruma picked his words carefully, wondering if he were being sounded out for a weakness. ‘When he walks the paths of power, a man needs to know who’s walking behind him.’

The master laughed, a cold sharp bark.

‘I like the way you express yourself, my friend, and you’re speaking the exact truth. What if I offered myself as one of your backers?’

‘I’d be honoured beyond dreaming, of course, but such support is far too valuable to come for free.’